THE §
CHOWKHAMBA SANSKRIT STUDIES
Vol. XVI
THE SIX SYSTEMS
OF
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
PROF. MAX MULLER
LIBRARY I
UNIVERSITY OF I
C .
THE
iCHOWKHAMBA SANSKRIT STUDIES
L —
Vol. XVI
THE SIX SYSTEMS
OF
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
BY THE
RIGHT HON. PROFESSOR MAX MULLER, K. M.
THE
CHOWKHAMBA SANSKRIT SERIES OFFICE
Post Box 8, Rs. 15-00 Varanasi-1 ( India )
PRINTED BY
THE VIDYA VILAS PRESS
VARANASI-l ( India )
PUBLISHER'S NOTE ?t
During the last one year we have reprinted several
important out-of-print works, all of which have been greatly
welcomed by scholars and students of Indian thought. Thus
encouraged we are now bringing out the present work
which has been written by the most illustrious of the
Orientalists from the West, Prof. Max Muller.
The work deals with the Six Systems of Indian Philo-
sophy, about the greatness of which Prof. Max Muller him-
self observes : "It was only in a country like India, with
all its physical advantages and dis-advantages, that such a
rich development of philosophical thought as we can watch
in the six systems of philosophy, could have taken place.
With this high degree of admiration Prof. Max Muller
has tried in the present work to publish the results of his own
studies in Indian Philosophy, not so much lo restate the
mere tenets of each systems, so deliberately and so clearly
put forward by the reputed authors of the principal philo-
sophies of India, as to give a more comprehensive account
of the philosophical activity of our country from the earliest
times, and to show how intimately not only our religion,
but our philosophy also was connected with our National
character.
We hope that our present effort would also be welcomed
by the Scholars and students alike.
THE SIX SYSTEMS
OF
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
BY THE
RIGHT HON. PROFESSOR MAX MULLER, K.M,
LATE FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE
NEW IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1919
PREFACE
It is not without serious misgivings that I venture at
this late hour of life to place before my fellow-workers
and all who are interested in the growth of philosophical
thought throughout the world some of the notes on the
Six Systems of Indian Philosophy which have accumulated
in my note-books for many years. It was as early as
1852 that I published my first contributions to the study
of Indian philosophy in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Mor-
genlandischen Gesellschaft. My other occupations, however,
and, more particularly, my preparations for a complete
edition of the Rig-Veda, and its voluminous commentary,
did not allow me at that time to continue these contri-
butions, though my interest in Indian philosophy, as a
most important part of the literature of India and of
Universal Philosophy, has always remained the same. This
interest was kindled afresh when I had to finish for the
Sacred Books of the East (vols, I and XV) my translation
of the Upanishads, the remote sources of Indian philosophy,
and especially of the Vedanta-philosophy, a system in
which human speculation seems to me to have reached its
very acme. Some of the other systems of Indian philosophy
also have from time to time roused the curiosity of scholars
and philosophers in Europe and America, and in India
itself a revival of philosophic and theosophic studies, though
not always well directed, has taken place, which, if it leads
to a more active co-operation between European and Indian
thinkers, may be productive in the future of most im-
portant results. Under these circumstances a general
desire has arisen, and has repeatedly been expressed, for
vi PREFACE
the publication of a more general and comprehensive
account of the six systems in which the philosophical
thought of india has found its full realisation.
More recently the excellent publications of Professors
Deussen and Garbe in Germany, and of Dr. G, Thibaut in
India, have given a new impulse to these important studies,
important not only in the eyes of Sanskrit scholars by pro-
fession, but of all who wish to become acquainted with
all the solutions which the most highly gifted races of
mankind have proposed for the eternal riddles of the
world. These studies, to quote the words of a high
authority, have indeed ceased to be the hobby of a few
individuals, and have become a subject of interest to the
whole nation.1 Professor Deussen's work on the Vedanta-
philosophy (1883) and his translation of the Vedanta-Sutras
(1 887), JProfessor Garbe's translation of the Sawkhya-Sutras
(1889) followed by his work on the Samkhya-philosophy
(1894), and, last not least, Dr. G. Thibaut's careful and
most useful translation of the Vedanta - Sutras in vols.
XXXIV and XXXVIII of the Sacred Books of the East
(1890 and 1896), mark a new era in the study of the two
most important philosophical systems of ancient India, and
have deservedly placed the names of their authors in the
front rank of Sanskrit scholars in Europe.
My object in publishing the results of my own studies
in Indian philosophy was not so much to restate the mere
tenets of each system, so deliberately and so clearly put
forward by the reputed authors of the principal philosophies
of India, as to give a more comprehensive account of the
philosophical activity of the Indian nation from the earliest
1 Words of the Viceroy of India, see Times, Nov. 8, 1898.
PREFACE vii
times, and to show how intimately not only their religion,
but their philosophy also, was connected with the national
character of the inhabitants of India, a point of view which
has of late been so ably maintained by Professor Knight
of St. Andrews University,1
It was only in a country like India, with all its physical
advantages and disadvantages, that such a rich develop-
ment of philosophical thought as we can watch in the six
systems of philosophy, could have taken place. In ancient
India there could hardly have been a very severe struggle
for life. The necessaries of life were abundantly provided
by nature, and people with few tastes could live there like
the birds in a forest, and soar like birds towards the fresh
air of heaven and the 'eternal sources of light and truth.
What was there to do for those who, in order to escape
from the heat of the tropical sun, had taken their abode
in the shade of groves or in the caves of mountainous
valleys, except to meditate on the world in which they
found themselves placed, they did not know how or why ?
There was hardly any political life in ancient India, such
as we know it from the Vedas, and in consequence neither
political strife nor municipal ambition. Neither art nor
science existed as yet, to call forth the energies of this
highly gifted race. While we, overwhelmed with news-
papers, with parliamentary reports, -with daily discoveries
and discussions, with new novels and time-killing social
functions, have hardly any leisure left to dwell on meta-
physical and religious problems, these problems formed
almost the only subject on which the old inhabitants of
India could spend their intellectual energies. Life in a
1 See 'Mind/ vol. v. no. 17.
viii PREFACE
forest was no impossibility in the warm climate of India,
and in the absence of the most ordinary means of com-
munication, what was there to do for the members of the
small settlements dotted over the country, but to give
expression to that wonder at the world which is the
beginning of all philosophy ? Literary ambition could
hardly exist during a period when even the art of writing
was not yet known, and when there was no literature
except what could be spread and handed down by memory,
developed to an extraordinary and almost incredible extent
under a carefully elaborated discipline. But at a time when
people could not yet think of public applause or private
gain, they thought all the more of truth ; and hence the
perfectly independent and honest character of most of their
philosophy.
It has long been my wish to bring the results of this
national Indian philosophy nearer to us, and, if possible,
to rouse our sympathies for their honest efforts to throw
some rays of light on the dark problems of existence,
whether of the objective world at large, or of the subjective
spirits, whose knowledge of the world constitutes, after all,
the only proof of the existence of an objective world. The
mere tenets of each of the six systems of Indian philosophy
are by this time well known, or easily accessible, more
accessible, I should say, than even those of the leading
philosophers of Greece or of modern Europe. Everyone
of the opinions at which the originators of the six principal
schools of Indian philosophy arrived, has been handed down
to us in the form of short aphorisms or Sutras, so as to
leave but little room for uncertainty as to the exact position
which each of these philosophers occupied on the great
PREFACE ix
battlefield of thought. We know what an enormous amount
of labour had to be spent and is still being spent in order
to ascertain the exact views of Plato and Aristotle, nay,
even of Kant and Hegel, on some of the most important
questions of their systems of philosophy. There are even
living philosophers whose words often leave us in doubt
as to what they mean, whether they are materialists or
idealists, monists or dualists, theists or atheists. Hindu
philosophers seldom leave us in doubt on such important
points, and they certainly never shrink from the conse-
quences of their theories. They never equivocate or try
to hide their opinions where they are likely to be unpopular.
Kapila, for instance, the author or hero eponymus of the
Sawkhya-philosophy, confesses openly that his system is
atheistic, an-isvara, without an active Lord or God, but in
spite of that, his system was treated as legitimate by his
contemporaries, because it was reasoned out consistently,
and admitted, nay, required some transcendent and invisible
power, the so-called Purushas. Without them there would
be no evolution of Praknti, original matter, no objective
world, nor any reality in the lookers-on themselves, the
Purushas or spirits. Mere names have acquired with us
such a power that the authors of systems in which there
is clearly no room for an active God, nevertheless shrink
from calling themselves atheists, nay, try even by any
means to foist an active God into their philosophies, in
order to escape the damaging charge of atheism. This
leads to philosophical ambiguity, if not dishonesty, and
has often delayed the recognition of a Godhead, free from
at the trammels of human activity and personality, but
yet endowed with wisdom, power, and will. From a philo-
x PREFACE
sophical point of view, no theory of evolution, whether
ancient or modern (in Sanskrit Pariwama), can provide any
room for a creator or governor of the world, and hence the
Sawkhya-philosophy declares itself fearlessly as an-i5vara,
Lord-less, leaving it to another philosophy, the Yoga, to
find in the old Samkhya system some place for an isvara
or a personal God. What is most curious is that a philo-
sopher, such as Sawkara, the most decided monist, and
the upholder of Brahman, as a neuter, as the cause of all
things, is reported to have been a worshipper of idols and
to have seen in them, despite of all their hideousness,
symbols of the Deity, useful, as he thought, for the ignorant,
even though they have no eyes as yet to see what is hidden
behind the idols, and what was the true meaning of them.
What I admire in Indian philosophers is that they never
try to deceive us as to their principles and the consequences
of their theories. If they are idealists, even to the verge
of nihilism, they say so, and if they hold that the objective
world requires a real, though not necessarily a visible or
tangible substratum, they are never afraid to speak out.
They are bona fide idealists or materialists, monists or
dualists, theists or atheists, because their reverence for
truth is stronger than their reverence for anything else.
The Vedantist, for instance, is a fearless idealist, and, as
a monist, denies the reality of anything but the One Brah-
man, the Universal Spirit, which is to account for the
whole of the phenomenal world. The followers of the
Sawkhya, on the contrary, though likewise idealists and
believers in an unseen Purusha (subject), and an unseen
Prakr/ti (objective substance), leave us in no doubt that
they are and mean to be atheists, so far as the existence
PREFACE xi
of an active God, a maker and ruler of the world, is con-
cerned. They do not allow themselves to be driven one
inch beyond their self-chosen position. They first examine
the instruments of knowledge which man possesses. These
are sensuous perception, inference, and verbal authority,
and as none of these can supply us with the knowledge of
a Supreme Being, as a personal creator and ruler of the
world, Kapila never refers to Him in his Sutras. As a
careful reasoner, however, he does not go so far as to say
that he can prove the non-existence of such a Being, but
he is satisfied with stating, like Kant, that he cannot
establish His existence by the ordinary channels of evidential
knowledge. In neither of these statements can I discover,
as others have done, any trace of intellectual cowardice,
but simply a desire to abide within the strict limits of
knowledge, such as is granted to human beings. He does
not argue against the possibility even of the gods of the
vulgar, such as Siva, Vishnu, and all the rest, he simply
treats them as Ganyesvaras or Karyesvaras, produced and
temporal gods ( Sutras III, 57, comm. ), and he does not
allow, even to the Supreme Isvar, the Lord, the creator
and ruler of the world, as postulated by other systems
of philosophy or religion, more then a phenomenal existence,
though we should always remember that with him there
is nothing phenomenal, nothing confined in space and
time, that does not in the end rest on something real and
eternal.
We must distinguish however. Kapila, though he boldly
confessed himself an atheist, was by no means a nihilist
or Nastika. He recognised in every man a soul which he
called Purusha, literally man, or spirit, or subject, because
xii PREFACE
without such a power, without such endless Purushas, he
held that Prakn'ti, or primordial matter with its infinite
potentialities, would for ever have remained dead, motion-
less, and thoughtless. Only through the presence of this
Purusha and through his temporary interest in Praknti
could her movements, her evolution, her changes and
variety be accounted for, just as the movements of iron
have to be accounted for by the presence of a magnet. All
this movement, however, is temporary only, and the highest
object of Kapila's philosophy is to make Purusha turn his
eyes away from Prakrfti, so as to stop her acting and to
regain for himself his oneness, his aloneness, his indepen-
dence, and his perfect bliss.
Whatever we may think of such views of the world as
are put forward by the Samkhya, the Vedanta, and other
systems of Indian philosophy, there is one thing which we
cannot help admiring, and that is the straightforwardness
and perfect freedom with which they are elaborated. How-
ever imperfect the style in which their theories have been
clothed may appear from a literary point of view, it seems
to me the very perfection for the treatment of philosophy.
It never leaves us in any doubt as to the exact opinions
held by each philosopher. We may miss the development
and the dialectic eloquence with which Plato and Hegel
propound their thoughts, but we can always appreciate the
perfect freedom, freshness, and downrightness with which
each searcher after truth follows his track without ever
looking right or left.
It is in the nature of philosophy that every philosopher
must be a heretic, in the etymological sense of the word,
PREFACE xiii
that is, a free chooser, even if, like the Vadantists, he, for
some reason or other, bows before his self-chosen Veda as
the seat of a revealed authority.
It has sometimes been said that Hindu philosophy asserts
but does not prove, that it is positive throughout, but not
argumentative. This may be true to a certain extent and
particularly with regard to the Vedanta-philosophy, but we
must remember that almost the first question which every
one of the Hindu systems of philosophy tries to settle is,
How do we know ? In thus giving the Noetics the first
place, the thinkers of the East seem to me again superior to
most of the philosophers of the West. Generally speaking,
they admitted three legitimate channels by which know-
ledge can reach us, perception, inference, and authority,
but authority freely chosen or freely rejected. In some
systems that authority is revelation, Sruti, Sabda, or the
Veda, in others it is the word of any recognised authority
Apta-vafcana. Thus it happens that the Samkhya philoso-
phers, who profess themselves entirely dependent on reason-
ing (Manana), may nevertheless accept some of the utterances
of the Veda as they would accept the opinions of eminent
men or Sishfas, though always with the proviso that even
the Veda could never make a false opinion true. The same
relative authority is granted to Smnti or tradition, but
there with the proviso that it must not be in contradiction
with Sruti or revelation.
Such an examination of the authorities of human know-
ledge (Pramanas) ought, of course, to form the introduction
to every , system of philosophy, and to have clearly seen
this is, as it seems to me, a very high distinction of Indian
philosophy. How much useless controversy would have
xiv PREFACE
been avoided, particularly among Jewish, Mohammedan,
and Christian philosophers, if a proper place had been
assigned in limine to the question of what constitutes our
legitimate or our only possible channels of knowledge,
whether perception, inference, revelation, or anything else /
Supported by these inquiries into the evidences of truth,
Hindu philosophers have built up their various systems of
philosophy, or their various conceptions of the world,
telling us clearly what they take for granted, and then
advancing step by step from the foundations to the highest
pinnacles of their systems. The Vadantist, after giving us
his reasons why revelation or the Veda stands higher with
him than sensuous perception and inference, at least for the
discovery of the highest truth (Paramartha). actually puts
Sruti in the place of sensuous perception, and allows to
perception and inference no more than an authority restricted
to the phenomenal (Vyavaharika) world. The conception
of the world as deduced from the Veda, and chiefly from
the Upanishads, is indeed astounding. It could hardly
have been arrived at by a sudden intuition or inspiration,
but presupposes a long preparation of metaphysical thought,
undisturbed by any foreign influences.' All that exists
is taken as One, because if the existence of anything besides
the absolute One or the Supreme Being were admitted,
whatever the Second by the side of the One might be, it
would constitute a limit to what was postulated as limitless,
and would have made the concept of the One self-contra-
dictory. But then came the question for Indian phiosophers
to solve, how it was possible, if there was but the One, that
there should be multiplicity in the world, and that there
should be constant change in our experience. They knew
that the one absolute and undetermined essence, what they
PREFACE xv
called Brahman, could have received no impulse to change,
either from itself, for it was perfect, nor from others, for it
was Second-less.
Then what is the philospher to say to this manifold and
ever-changing world ? There is one thing only that he can
say, namely, that it is not and cannot be real, but must be
accepted as the result of nescience or Avidya, not only of
individual ignorance, but of ignorance as inseparable from
human nature. That ignorance, though unreal in the
highest sense, exists, but it can be destroyed by Vidya,
knowledge, i. e. the knowledge conveyed by the Vedanta,
and as nothing that can at any time be annihilated has
a right to be considered as real, it follows that this cosmic
ignorance also must be looked upon as not real, but tem-
porary only. It cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said
not to exist, just, as our own ordinary ignorance, though we
suffer from it for a time, can never claim absolute reality
and perpetuity. It is impossible to define Avidya, as little
as it is possible to define Brahman, with this difference,
however, that the former can be annihilated, the latter
never. The phenomenal world which, according to the
Vadanta, is called forth, like the mirage in a desert, has its
reality in Brahman alone. Only it must be remembered
that what we perceive can never be the absolute Brahman,
but a perverted picture only, just as the moon which we
see manifold and tremulous in its ever changing reflections
on the waving surface of the ocean, is not the real moon,
though deriving its phenomenal character from the real
moon which remains unaffected in its unapproachable re-
moteness. Whatever we may think of such a view of the
cosmos, a cosmos which, it should be remembered, includes
ourselves quite as much as what we call the objective
xvi PREFACE
world, it is clear that our name of nihilism would be by no
means applicable to it.
The One Real Being is there, the Brahman, only it is not
visible, nor perceptible in its true character by any of the
senses ; but without it, nothing that exists in our knowledge
could exist, neither our Self nor what in our knowledge is
not our Self.
This is one view of the world, the Vedanta view; another
is that of the Sawkhya, which looks upon our perceptions
as perceptions of a substantial something, of Praknti, the
potentiality of all things, and treats the individual per-
ceiver as eternally individual, admitting nothing besides
these two powers, which by their union or identification
cause what we call, the world, and by their discrimination
or separation produce final bliss or absoluteness.
These two, with some other less important views of the
world, as put forward by the other systems of Indian
philosophy, constitute the real object of what was originally
meant by philosophy, that is an explanation of the world.
This determining idea has secured even to the guesses of
Thales and Heraclitus their permanent place among the
historical representatives of the development of philosophical
thought by the side of Plato and Aristotle, of Des Cartes
and Spinoza. It is in that Walhalla of real philosophers
that I claim a place of honour for the representatives of
the Vedanta and Samkhya. Of course, it is possible so to
define the meaning of philosophy as to exclude men such
as even Plato and Spinoza altogether, and to include on the
contrary every botanist, entomologist, or bacteriologist.
The name itself is of no consequence, but its definition is.
And if hitherto no one would have called himself a philoso-
PREFACE xvii
pher who had not read and studied the works of Plato and
Aristotle, of Des Cartes and Spinoza, of Locke, Hume, and
Kant in the original. I hope that the time will come when
no one will claim that name who is not acquainted at least
with the two prominent systems of ancient Indian philo-
sophy, the Vedanta and the Samkhya. A President, how-
ever powerful, does not call himself His Majesty, why
should an observer, a collector and analyser, however full
of information, claim the name of philosopher ?
As a rule, I believe that no one knows so well the defects
of his book as the author himself, and I can truly say in
my own case that few people can be so conscious of the
defects • of this History of Indian Philosophy as I myself.
It cannot be called a history, because the chronological
framework is, as yet, almost entirely -absent. It professes
to be no more than a description of some of the salient
points of each of the six recognised systems of Indian
philosophy. It does not claim to be complete ; on the
contrary, if I can claim any thanks, it is for having en-
deavoured to omit whatever seemed to me less important
and not calculated to appeal to European sympathies. If
we want our friends to love our friends, we do not give
a full account of every one of their good qualities, but we
dwell on one or two of the strong points of their character.
This is what I have tried to do for my old friends, Badara-
yana, -Kapila, and all the rest. Even thus it could not
well be avoided that in giving an account of each of the
six systems, there should be much repetition, for they all
share so much in common, with but slight modifications,
and the longer I have studied the various systems, the more
have I become impressed with the truth of the view taken
2S.
xviii PR-EFACiE
by Vign&na-Bhikshu and others that there is behind the
variety of the six systems a common fund of what may be
called national or popular philosophy, a large Manasa lake
of philosophical thought and language, far away in the
distant North, and in the distant Past, from which each
thinker was allowed to draw for his own purposes. Thus,
while I should not be surprised, if Sanskrit scholars were
to blame me for having left out too much, students of
philosophy may think that there is really too much of the
same subject, discussed again and again in the six different
schools. I have done my best, little as it may be, and my
best reward will be if a new interest shall spring up for
a long neglected mine of philosophical thought, and if my
own book were soon to be superseded by a more complete
and more comprehensive examination of Indian philosophy.
A friend of mine, a native of India, whom 1 consulted
about the various degrees of popularity enjoyed at the
present day by different systems of philosophy in his. own
country, informs me that the only system that can now be
said to be living in India is the Vadanta with its branches,
the Advaitis, the Madhvas, the Ramanugas, and the Valla-
bhas. The Vedanta, being mixed with religion, he writes,
has become a living faith, and numerous Pandits can be
found to-day in all these sects who have learnt at least the
principal works by heart and can expound them, such as
the Upanishads, the Brahma-Sutras, the -great Commen-
taries of the Akaryas and the Bhagavad-gita. , Some of the
less important treatises also are studied, such as the Pawka-
dasi and Yoga-Vasishf/za. The Purva-Mimawsa is still
studied in Southern India, but not much in other parts,
although expensive sacrifices are occasionally performed.
The Agnishfoma was performed last year at Benares.
PREFACE xix
Of the other systems, the Nyaya only finds devotees,
especially in Bengal, but the works studied are generally
the later controversial treatises, not the earlier ones.
The Vaiseshika is neglected and so is the Yoga, except
in its purely practical and most degenerate form.
It is feared, however, that even this small remnant of
philosophical learning will vanish in one or two generations,
as the youths of the present day, even if belonging to
orthodox Brahmanic families, do not take to these studies,
as there is no encouragement.
But though we may regret that the ancient method of
philosophical study is dying out in India, we should welcome
all the more a new class of native students who, after
studying the history of European philosophy, have devoted
themselves to the honorable task of making their own
national philosophy better known to the world at large.
I hope that my book may prove useful to them by showing
them in what direction they may best assist us in our
attempts to secure a place to thinkers such as Kapila and
Badarayana by the side of the leading philosophers of
Greece, Rome, Germany, France, Italy, arid England. In
some cases the enthusiasm of native students may seem to
have carried them too far, and a mixing up of philosophical
with religious and theosophic propaganda, inevitable as it
is said to be in India, is always dangerous. But such
journals as the Pandit, the Brahmavadin, the Light of
Truth, and lately the Journal -of the Buddhist Text Society,
have been doing most valuable service. What we want
are texts and translations, and any information that can
throw light on the chronology of Indian philosophy. Nor
should their labour be restricted to Sanskrit texts. In the
xx PREFACE
South of India there exists a philosophical literature which,
though it may show clear traces of Sanskrit influence, con-
tains also original indigenous elements of great beauty and
of great importance for historical ^purposes. Unfortunately
few scholars only have taken up, as yet, the study of the
Dravidian languages and literature, but young students
who complain that there is nothing left to do in Sanskrit
literature, would, I believe, find their labours amply re-
warded in that field. How much may be done in another
direction by students of Tibetan literature in furthering a
study of Indian philosophy has lately been proved by the
publications of Sarat Chandra Das, C.I.E., and Satis Chandra
Acharya Vidyabhushana, M.A., and their friends.
In conclusion I have to thank Mr. A. E. Gough, the
translator of the Vaiseshika-Sutras, and the author of the
'Philosophy of the Upanishads,' for his extreme kindness
in reading a revise of my proof-sheets. A man of seventy-
six has neither the eyes nor the Memory which he had at
twenty-six, and he may be allowed to appeal to younger
men for such help as he himself in his younger days has
often and glady lent to his Gurus and fellow-labourers.
Oxford, May 1, 1899. F. M. M.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
Though I am aware that the Six Systems of Indian
Philosophy, the last large work written by my husband,
and published only two months before the beginning of
his fatal illness, shows spme signs of weariness, and that
the materials are perhaps less clearly gathered up and set
before the reader than in his other works, I have had so
many letters from friends in India as well as in England,
expressing a desire for a second and cheaper edition, that
I could not hesitate to comply with Messrs. Longmans'
wish to add the 'Six Systems' to the Collected Works.
A friend on whose judgement I have complete reliance
writes : 'There is nothing like it in English for compre-
hensiveness of view, and it will long remain the most
valuable introduction to the study of Indian philosophy
in our language. It is an astonishing book for one who
had passed threescore years and ten.'
GEORGINA MAX MULLER.
August, 1903.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
PAGE
Philosophy and Philosophers . . . . . . 1
Srutam and Smrztam ....••»*
Upanishad-period, from about 700 B.C . . . • » 4
Period antecedent to the Upanishads . . . . . 5
Intellectual Life in ancient India ..... 7
Kshatriyas and Brahmans ....... 8
The Evidence of the Upanishads, Ganaka, Agatasatru . . 11
Agatasatru . . . . . . . . .13
Buddhist Period. . . . . . . . .14
Prasenagit and Bimbisara . . . . . . .16
Brahma-gala-sutta . . . . . . .16
Mahabharata . . . . . . . . . 21
Buddha . . . . . . . . . » 23
Greek Accounts. * . , . . . .26
Buddhist Pilgrims, Hiouen-thsang . . . . . .27
King Harsha . . . . . . . . 30
CHAPTER II.
THE VEDAS
The Vedas 30
The Philosophical Basis of the Vedic Gods . . . .35
Three Classes of Vedic Gods .37
Other Classifications of Gods . . . . . .38
The Visve or All-gods. . . . . . . .39
Tendencies towards Unity among the Gods .... 40
Henotheism ......... 40
Monotheism and Monism . . . . . . .41
CONTENTS xxiii
/
PAGE
Pragapati ....... , • • • 42
Visvakarman . . . . . • • • .43
Tvashfn . . 43
Search for a Supreme Deity. • » » • • .45
Hymn to the Unknown God. . . . • • .46
Brahman, Atman, Tad Ekam . . . • • • 4^
Nasadiya Hymn ,...»••• 49
Brahman, its various Meanings . . . . • .52
Bn'h and Brahman, Word 55
East and West 58
Mind and Speech . . . . . . • .67
Atman '. . . . . . . • • .70
Pragapati, Brahman, Atman. . . . • • .72
CHAPTER III
THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY.
Growth of Phi losophical^Ideas • . . . 74
Prasthana Bheda . . . . . . . .75
Literary References in the Upanishads , . . 84
The Six Systems of Philosophy . . . . ... 85
Bnhaspati Sutras . . . . . .... 86
Books of Reference . 87
Dates of the -Philosophical Sutras . . . . . . 88
Samkhya-Sutras ........ 90
Vedanta-Sutras ......... 90
Mnemonic Literature. . . . . . . .92
The Bnhaspati-Philosophy . . . . . . . 94
Common Philosophical Ideas . . * . . .104
1. Metempsychosis — Samsara ... , . . » 104
2. Immortality 'of the Soul. . ..... . . 105
3. Pessimism . . . . . ... . 106
xxiv CONTENTS
PAGE
4. Kafman ' . . . . . . . .109
5. Infallibility of the Veda. . . . . . .111
6. Three Gurcas . . . . . . . .111
CHAPTER IV
VEDANTA OR UTTARA-MIMAMSA
Vedanta or tlttara-Mimawsa . . . . . .113
Badarayana . . . . . . • * .116
Fundamental Doctrines of the Vedanta . . . . .121
Translation of the Upanishads . . . \ . 1 3 7
Character- of the Upanishads . . . . . .139
Vedanta-Sutras . . . . . . . . • . 140
Appeals to the-Veda . .... . .143
Praraanas. . . . . . . . • . 143
Pramanas according to the Samkhya . . . . .144
Pratyaksha , . . . . . . . .144
Anumana . . . . . . * . * 145
Sabda * 145
Authority of the ^Vedas . . », . . »149
The Meaning of Veda. . . . . » .149
Work-part and Knowledge-part of the Veda . . . .151
Vidya and Avidya . » . . > . . . . .152
Subject and Object 152
The Phenomenal Reality of the World ..... 154
Creation or Causation. . . . . ....155
Cause and Effect. ..... . . . 156
Dreaming and Waking . . . . , . .160
The Higher and the Lower Knowledge . . . . .164
Is Virtue Essential to Moksha ? . . . . . . 166
The two Brahmans ... . . . . . .168
Philospphy and Religion . ..... . , . .171
CONTENTS xxv
PAGE
Karrnaft . ' . . . .171
Brahman is Everything < . • . . . . 172
The Sthula-and Sukshma-sarira? . . . k . ,173
The Four States . . . . . . . .174
Eschatology ........ . . . .175
Freedom in this Life . . ( . . . .180
Different Ways of Studying Philosophy ; . . . .182
Ramanuga ... . . . . . .185
Metaphors 4 . . . . . % , , .195
CHAPTER V,
PURVA-MlMAMSA
Purva-AlimaHisa . . . . . . t , 197
Contents of the Purva-Mimamsa . . . . t ,. .200
Pramanas of Caimini . » . . ... .202
Sutra-style . 203
Has the Veda a Superhuman Origin ? . . . . .206
Supposed Atheism of Purva-Mimamsa . . . . . . 210
Is the Purva-Mimawsa a system of Philosophy ? . . .213
f
CHAPTER VI.
SAMKHYA-PHILOSOPHY.
Samkhya-Philosophy ,215
Later Vedanta mixed with SaTTzkhya . . . . .215
Relative Age of Philosophies and Sutras. • . . /'• . 219
Age of the • KapUa-Sutras . , . . . » 220
Samkhya-karikas . • . . .... . .222
Date of Gaurfapada . . . .... . .223
Tattva-samasa » , ..-.•.-• .224
Anteriority of Vedanta or Samkhya . - . . . t 229
CONTENTS
PAGE
Atheism ancf Orthodoxy . . . . .. . . • * , • 231
Authority of the Veda .232
Sawkhya hostile to Priesthood . . . . .233
Parallel development of Philosophical Systems. , . . .235
Buddhism subsequent to Upanishads . . * .236
Lalita-vistara . . . . ... . • 237
Ajvaghosha's Buddha-Aarita . . . • • .237
Buddhist Suttas . ... . . • • 238
A^valayana's Grihya-Sutras .... . * • 239
Did Buddha borrow from Kapila ? . » . » ,240
j (J A I
Bana s Harshafcarita . .' . • • •
The Tattva-samasa . . . . . • • .242
List of Twenty-five Tattvas . . . . . • .244
The Avyakta 245
Buddhi . . . .246
Ahamkara . . • . ' . • • 249
Five Tanmatras . . . . . . • 250
Sixteen Vikaras . . . . . » .251
Five Buddhindriyas . . . . • . - • - » .251
Five Karmendriyas . . . . . . • .252
Manas 252
Five Mahabhutas . . . . » . . 252
Purusha . . . . . ... ..253
Is Purusha an Agent ?.....»• 255
Three Gunas , . . . 255
Is Purusha one or many ? . . . . . . • 256
Vedanta Sayings . . , . » . . ,256
Early Relation between Vedanta and Samkhya * . .258
Traiguflya . . . , . . » » .262
San£ara and PratisanA;ara ...... * 264
CONTENTS xxvii
PAGE
Adhyatma, Adhibhuta, Adhidaivata . . . . . 264
Abhibuddhis (5) . . . r. '. '. . .265
Karmayonis (5) . . ~ . . ' . ' . ' * • i 266
Vayus (5) '., ', ; . '. -. • . . .• 267'
Karmatmans (5) . . . '. . . . 267
Avidya, Nescience (5) . . .. . . . 268
Asakti, Weakness (28) . . . . * . 26a
Atush^i'and Tusha . ... . . . . 269-
Asiddhis and Siddhis. 269-
Tushm and Siddhis . . 270
Mulikarthas 270
Shashti-tant ra . . . . . . . . .271
Anugraha-sarga. . » . . » » . .271
Bhuta-sarga . . . . . k . . .272
Bandha, Bondage . . . . . . 4 272
Dakshina-bondage, Gifts to Priests. . . . . .272
Moksha . . . . . . . . . 27&
Pramar?as . . , . . . . . .273
Du/zkha . . . . . . . . . . 274
The true Meaning of the Sawkhya . . . . . .275-
Nature of Pain . . '. . ' t . . .276
Vedanta and Samkhya . . . . . .27^-
Vedanta, Avidya, and Aviveka . . . . . .280
Samkhya, Aviveka .... 281
Atman and Purusha ..... 285-
Origin of Avidya .... 289
The Sastra ..... 289^
Development of Prakriti, Cosmic . ... 290
Retrospect ••...» 290
Is Samkhya Idealism ? . . . , ^ .293
Purusha and Prakriti . 295
xxviii CONTENTS
PAGE
296
State of'Purusha, when Free
. 297
Meaning of ram
PurUsha •
298
Prakriti an Automaton ?
299
Prakrui's Unselfishness . . •
Gross and Subtle Body . . 30°
302
The Atheism of Kapila . . . • •
304
Immorality of the Samkhya .
305
Samkhya Parables ..•••'
CHAPTER VII.
YOGA-PHILOSOPHY
en?
Yoga and Samkhya . . .
a r\ O
Meanings of the word Yoga. . •
O/-VQ
Yoga, not Union, but Disunion .
YogaasViveka . . . . • • • .310
Patangali, Vyasa »' ..313
3 14
Second Century B. C. . • •
315
Chronology of Thought . . , •
917
The Yoga-Philosophy-
Misconception of the Objects of Yoga . . • . • .31
Devotion to Ijvara, Misconceptions . . • * .319
What is Lyvra ? » • .321
Kapi la's Real Arguments . . . » » • .327
The Theory of Karman 33°
The four Books of Yoga-Sutras . . . . ... 334
True Object of Yoga . . . . . . .335
Xitta . . . . . . . .336
Functions of the Mind . . . . • • .337
Exercises. . . • .338
CONTENTS xxix
PAGE
Dispassion, Vairagya . ..... . 333.
Meditation With or Without an Object . . . . .341
Ijvara once more . . . . . . . 343
Other Means of obtaining Samadhi . , . . 344
Samadhi Apragnata . . . ... . .347
Kaivalya, Freedom . . . . . .347
Yogangas, Helps to Yoga . . . ... .348
Vibhutis, Powers ........ 349
Samyama and Siddhis . . . . . . .350
Miracles .... . * . . . . 352
True Yoga . . ...... . 355
The Three Gunas . ...'... » 357
Sawskaras and Vasanas . . . . . . . 357
Kaivalya .3^9
Is Yoga Nihilism ? . . . . . . . 359
CHAPTER VIIL
NYAYA AND VAISESHIKA
Relation between Nyaya and Vaueshika . . . .362
Dignaga . . . . . . . » 364
Bibliography *. . J . ... . . , 368
Nyaya-Philosophy . . . . . . . » 369
Summum Bonum . . . . . . . » 370
Means of Salvation . . . . . [ . » 373
The Sixteen Topics or Padarthas . . . . . .374
Means of Knowledge . . » . . . ,374
Objects of Knowledge ...... 375
Padartha, Object . . . . . t t .376
Six Padarlhas of Vaijeshika . . . , * ' . 376
Madhava's Account of Nyaya . 4 . . . t .377
xxx CONTENTS
PAGE
I. Pramana . . • • * * * ' 3^8
Perception or Pratyaksha . . . • • • .379
Inference or Anumana . . . * • • .379
Comparison or Upamana . . . . . • .382
Word or Sabda 382
II. Prameya . . ... . ' . . .382
III. Sawwaya ' . . .385
IV. Prayogana. V. Drtshmnta. VI. SMdhanta . . .385
VII. The Avayavas, or Members of a Syllogism . . . 385
Indian and Greek Logic ....... 386
VIII. Tarka . . .... . . .388
IX. Nirnaya .388
X-XVI. Vada, Galpa, Vitanda, Hetvabhasa, Gati, 'Khala, Nigra-
hasthana . . . 389
Judgments on Indian Logic . . . . . .390
The Later Books of the Nyaya . . . . .391
Pratyaksha, Perception . . . . . . .392
Time — Present, fPast, Future . . . . . .393
Upamana, Comparison . . . . . . .394
5"abda, the Word ... . . . . . 394
The Eight Pramanas . , .... . .395
Thoughts on Language * .... . .397
Spho/a . . . . . . . . i 402
Wrords express the Summun Genus . . . . .405
Words expressive of Genera or Individuals ? . . . . 406
All Words mean TO o ^ . . . . , . 406
Vedanta on Spho/a . . . . . .410
Yoga and Sawkhya on Spho.'a .... . . .412
Nyaya on Spho/a . ... . . . .413
Vaueshika on Sphote . . . . . . . .414
Prame^as, Objects pf Kno.w ledge . . . ..415
CONTENTS xxxi
PAGE
Indriyas, Senses .... ... 415
,9arira, Body ...... 416
Manas, Mind . . . • • • * • .416
Atman - 419
Memory . . . . • • • • • .419
Knowledge not Eternal . . . . . . .421
More Prameyas. . . . . . . . .421
Life after Death 422
Existence of Deity . . . . . . 422
Cause and Effect 423
Phala, Rewards 425
Emancipation ......... 425
Knowledge of Ideas, not of things . . . . . .426
Syllogism . .427
Pramanas in different Philosophical Schools . . . .428
Anumana for Others . . . . . . . .431
CHAPTER IX
VALS-ESHIKA PHILOSOPHY
Date of Sutras . . . . . . . . . 433
Dates from Tibetan Sources. . . . . . 439
Karcada .......... 449
Substances ....... 441
Qualities ...... 44!
Actions ....... 442
Cause ••••...... 443
Qualities Examined . . . . . . .443
Time • 444
SPace 444
Manas «... 445
Anus or Atoms .... . 445
xxxii CONTENTS
PAGE
. 447
Samanya.
Vuesha . . • • ......... 447
• . 447
Samavaya ....
Abhava . . • ..'--.
The Six Systems . . • • •
461
INDEX . . ... . • . - . •
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
Philosophy and Philosophers.
WHILE in most countries a history of philosophy is
inseparable from a history of philosophers, in India we
have indeed ample materials for watching the origin and
growth of philosophical ideas, but hardly any for studying
the lives or characters of those who founded or supported
the philosophical systems of that country. Their work
has remained and continues to live to the present day, but
of the philosophers themselves hardly anything remains
to us beyond their names. Not even their dates can be
ascertained with any amount of certainty. In Greece,
from the earliest times, the simplest views of the world
and of the destinies of man, nay even popular sayings,
maxims of morality and worldly wisdom, and wise saws
of every kind, even though they contained nothing very
original or personal, were generally quoted as the utter-
ances of certain persons or at least ascribed to certain
names, such as the Seven Sages, so as to have something
like a historical background. We have some idea of who
Thales was. and who was Plato, where and when they
lived, and what they did ; but of Kapila, the supposed
founder of the S£mkhya philosophy, of Patafyali, the
founder of the Yoga, of Gotama and Ka^ada, of Badara-
yana and (raimini, we know next to nothing, and what
we know hardly ever rests on contemporary and trust-
worthy evidence. Whether any of these Indian philosophers
lived at the same time and in the same place, whether they
were friends or enemies, whether some were the pupils and
2 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
others the teachers, all this is unknown to us, nor do I see
any chance of our ever knowing more about them than we
do at present. We read that Thales warned King Croesus,
we are told that Empedocles finished liis days by throwing
himself into the flames of Aetna, we know that Socrates
drank poison, arid that Anaxagoras was the friend of
Pericles, but there is nothing to connect the names of the
ancient Indian philosophers with any historical events,
with any political characters,, or with dates before the
time of Buddha.
It is quite true that every literary composition, whether
in prose or in poetry, presupposes an individual author,
that no poem makes itself, and no philosophical syatem is
elaborated by the people at large. But on the other hand,
no poet makes himself, no philosopher owes everything to
himself. He grows from a soil that is ready made for
him, and he breathes an intellectual atmosphere which is
not of his own making. The Hindus seem to have felt
this indebtedness of the individuals to those before and
around them far more strongly than the Greeks, who, if
they cannot find a human author, have recourse even to
mythological and divine personages in order to have
a pedestal, a name, and an authority for every great
thought and every great invention of antiquity. The
Hindus are satisfied with giving us the thoughts, and leave
us to find out their antecedents as best we can.
/Sxntam and Smritasn.
The Hindus have divided the whole of their ancient
literature into two parts, which really mean two periods,
jSrutam, what was heard, and was not the work of men or
any personal being, human or divine, and Smritam, what
was remembered, and has always been treated as the work
of an individual, whether man or god. $rutam or Sruti
came afterwards to mean what has been revealed, exactly
as we understand that word, while Smritam or Smriti
comprised all that was recognised as possessing human
authority only, so that if there ever was a conflict between
the two, Smriti or tradition might at once be overruled by
what was called $ruti or revelation.
#RITTAM AND SM/KTAM. 3
It is curious, however, to observe how the revealed
literature, of the Hindus, such as the hymns of the
Rig-veda, have in later times been ascribed to certain
families, nay even to individual poets, though many of
the names of these poets are clearly fictitious. Nor are
even these fictitious poets supposed to have created or
composed their poems, but only to have seen them as they
were revealed to them by a higher power, commonly called
Brahman, or the Word, What we call philosophy in its
eystematie form, is, from an Indian point of view, not
revealed, /Srutam, but belongs to Smriti or tradition.
We possess it in carefully composed and systematically
elaborated manuals, in short aphorisms or Sutras or in
metrical Karikas, ascribed to authors of whom we hardly
know anything, a-nd followed by large commentaries or
independent treatises which are supposed to contain the
outcome of a continuous tradition going back, to very
ancient times, to the Sutra, nay even to the Br&hmawa
period, though in their present form they are confessedly
the work .of medieval or modern writers. In the Sutras
each system of philosophy is complete, and elaborated in
its minutest details. There is no topic within the sphere
of philosophy which does not find a clear or straightforward
treatment in these short Sutras. The Sfttra style, imperfect
as it is from a literary point of view, would be invaluable
to us in other systems of philosophy, such as Hegel's or
PJato's. We should always know where we are, and we
should never hear of a philosopher who declared on his
deathbed that no one had understood him, nor of antago-
nistic schools, diverging from and appealing to the same
teacher. One thing must be quite clear to every attentive
reader of these Sfttras, namely, that they represent the last
result of a long continued study of philosophy, carried on
for centuries in the forests and hermitages of India. The
ideas which are shared by all the systems of Indian philo-
sophy, the large number of technical terms possessed by
them in common or peculiar to each system, can leave no
doubt on this subject. Nor can we doubt that for a long
time the philosophical thoughts of India were embodied in
wha-t I call a Mnemonic Literature. Writing for literary
B c
4 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
purposes was unknown in India before the rise of
Buddhism, and even at the Buddhist Councils when
their Sacred Canon, the Tripitfaka, was settled, we hear
nothing as yet of paper, ink, and reeds, but only of oral
and even musical repetition. The very name of a Council
was Samgiti or Mahasamgiti, i.e. singing together, and the
different parts of the Canon were not consigned to writing,
but rehearsed by certain individuals. Whenever there
arose a dispute as to the true, teaching of Buddha, it was
not settled by an appeal to any MS., but an invitation
was addressed to a member of the Samgha who knew the
text by heart. It is actually mentioned that the Southern
Canon was not reduced to writing till the first century B. c.,
under King Va^agamani, about 80 B.C. Nothing can be
more explicit than the statement in the chronicles of Ceylon
on that point : ' Before this time the wise monks had
handed down the texts of the Tipi£aka orally ; and also
the Atf^akatha (commentary). At this time the monks,
perceiving the decay of beings (not MSS.), assembled, and
in order that the Law might endure for a long time, they
caused it to be written down in books/ Such a state of
things is difficult for us to imagine, still if we wish to
form a true idea of the intellectual state of India in pre-
Buddhistic times, we must accustom ourselves to the idea
that all that could be called literature then was mnemonic
only, carefully guarded by a peculiar and very strict
educational discipline, but of course exposed to all the
inevitable chances of oral tradition. That Mnemonic Period
existed for philosophy as well as for everything else, and
if we have to begin our study of Indian philosophy with
the Stitras, these Sutras themselves must be considered as
the last outcome of a long continued philosophical activity
carried on by memory only.
JDTpanishad-period, from about 700 B.C.
But while the Sutras give us abstracts of the variouc
systems of philosophy, ready made, there must have been,
nay there was, one period, previous to the Stitras, during
which we can watch something like growth, like life and
strife, in Indian philosophy, and that is the last stage ,
UPANI SHAD-PEEIOD. 5
of the Vedic period, as represented to us in the
Upanishads.
For gaining an insight into the early growth of Indian
philosophic thought, this period is in fact the most valu-
able; though of systematised philosophy, in our sense of
the word, it contains, as yet, little or nothing. As we can
feel that there is electricity in the air, and that there will
be a storm, we feel, on reading the Upanishads, that there
is philosophy in the Indian mind, and that there will be
thunder and lightning to follow soon. Nay, I should even
go a step further. In order to be able to account for what
seem to us more sparks of thought, mere guesses at truth,
we are driven to admit a long familiarity with philosophic
problems before the time that gave birth to the Upanishads
which we possess.
Period antecedent to the Upanishads.
The Upanishads contain too many technical terms, such
as Brahman, Atman, Dharma, Yrata, Yoga, Mimawsa, and
many more, to allow us to suppose that they were the
products of one day or of one generation. Even if the
later systems of philosophy did not so often appeal them-
selves to the Upanishads as their authorities, we could
easily see for ourselves that, though flowing in very
different directions, like the Ganges and the Indus, these
systems of philosophy can all be traced back to the same
distant heights from which they took their rise. And as
India was fertilised, not only by the Ganges and Indus,
but by ever so many rivers and rivulets, all pointing to the
Snowy Mountains in the North, we can see the Indian
mind also being nourished through ever so many channels,
all starting from a vast accumulation of religious and
philosophic thought of which we seem to see the last
remnants only in our Upanishads, while the original
springs are lost to us for ever.
If some of the seeds and germs of philosophy could be
discovered, as has been hastily thought, among the savage
tribes of to-day, nothing would be' more welcome to the
historian of philosophy,' but until these tribes have been
classified according to language, we must leave these
6 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
dangerous enterprises to others. For the present w# must
be satisfied with the germs of thought such as we find
them in the Upanishads, and in the archives of language
which reach back far beyond the Upanishads and even
beyond the folklore of Khonds, Bhils, and Koles.
It is true that during that distant period which we eun
watch in the Upanishads, philosophy was not yet separated
from religion ; but the earliest religion, at least among the
speakers of Aryan languages, serins always to have been not
only the first religion, but the first philosophy also, of the
races that had taken possession of India, as well as of
the best soil of Asia and Europe. If it is ihe object of
philosophy to discover the causes of things, 'rerwn co-
gnoscere eausas, what was the creation of the earliest mytho-
logical gods but an attempt to explain the causes of light,
of fire, of dawn, of day and night, of rain and thunder, by
postulating agents for every one of them, and calling them
Dyaus or Agni, light or fire, Ushas, dawn, the Asvins, day
and night, Indra, the sky-god, a,nd calling all of them
Devas, the Bright, or dii, the gods ? Here are the first
feeders of the idea of the Godhead, whatever tributaries it
may have received afterwards. Of course, that distant
period to which we have to assign this earliest growth of
language, thought, religion, law, morals, and philosophy,
has left us no literary monuments. Here and there we
can discover faint traces in language, indicating the foot-
prints left by the strides of former giants. But in India,
where we have so little to guide us in our historical re-
searches, it is of great importance to remember that there
was such a distant period of nascent thought ; and that, if
at a later time we meet with the same ideas and words
turning up in different systems, whether of religion or
philosophy, we should be careful not to conclude at once
that they must have been borrowed by one system from
the other, forgetting that there was an ancient reservoir of
thought from which all could have drawn and drank.
Considering how small our historical information is as
to the intellectual and social life of India at different times
of its history, it is essential that we should carefully gather
whatever there is, before we attempt to study Indian
INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN ANCIENi INDIA. 7
philosophy in its differentiated and systematised system^.
Mueh^of our information may represent a chaos only, but
we want such a chaos in order to understand the kosmos
that followed.
Intellectual Life in ancient India.
In certain chapters of the BrahmaTias and in the Upani-
shads we see a picture of the social and intellectual life
of India at that early time, which seems fully to justify
the saying th<< b India has "always been a nation of philo-
sophers. The picture which these sacred books give us
of the seething thoughts of that country may at first sight
seeni fanciful and almost incredible ; but because the men
of ancient India, as they are there represented to us, if
by tradition only, are different from Greeks and Romans
and from ourselves, it does not follow that we have not
before us a faithful account of what really existed at one
time in the land of the Five or Seven Bivere. Why should
these accounts have been invented, unless they contained
a certain verisimilitude in the eyes of the people? It is
quite clear that they were not composed, as some people
seem to imagine, in order to impose after two thousands
of years on us, the scholars of Europe, or on anybody else.
The idea that the ancient nations of the world wished to
impose on us, that they wished to appear more ancient
than they were, more heroic, more marvellous, more enT
lightened, is an absurd fancy. They did not even think
of us, and had no word as yet for posterity. Such thoughts
belong to much later times, and even then we woudei
rather how a local, not to say, provincial poet like Horack
should have thought so much of ages to come. We must
not allow such ideas of f raud and forgery to spoil our
'fyitik and our interest in ancient history. The ancients
thought much more of themselves than of the nations of
the distant future. If, however, what the ancients tell us
about their own times, or about the past which could never
have extended very far back, seems incredible to us, we
should, always try first of all to understand it as possible,
before we reject it as impossible and as an intentional
fraud. That in very early times kings and nobles and
8 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
sages in India should have been absorbed in philosophical
questions seems no doubt strange to us, because the energies
of the people of Europe, as far back as we know anything
about them, have always been divided between practical
and intellectual pursuits, the former, in ancient times, con-
siderably preponderating over the latter. But why should
not a different kind of life have been possible in a country
which, without much effort on the part of its cultivators,
yielded in abundance all that was necessary for the support
of life, which was protected oii three sides by the silver-
streaks of the* ocean, and on the fourth by almost impassable
mountain barriers, a country whicli for thousands of years
was free from war except the war of extermination directed
against barbarous tribes, the so-called sons of the soil?
After all, to thoughtful people, finding themselves placed
on this planet, they did not know how or why, it was not
so very far-fetched a problem, particularly while there was
as yet no struggle for life, to ask who they were, whence
they came, and what they were intended' for here on earth.
Thus we read at the beginning of the /SVetasvatara-upani-
sliad : ' Whence are we born '? Whereby do we live, and
whither do we go? O ye who know Brahman, (tell us)
at whose command we abide here, whether in pain or in
pleasure 1 Should time or nature, or necessity, or chance,
or the elements be considered as the cause, or He who is
called Purusha, the man, that is, the Supreme Spirit l '? '
Xshntriyas and Brahmans.
It might be thought that all this was due to the elevating
influence of an intellectual aristocracy, such as we find
from very early times to the present day in India, the
Brahmans. But this is by no means the case. The so-
called Kshatriyas or military nobility take nearly as active
a part in the intellectual life of the country as the Brahmans
themselves. The fact is that we have to deal in the earlier
period of ancient India with two rather than with four
castes and their numerous subdivisions.
This term ca&tt has proved most mischievous and mis-
1 Sec also Anugita, chap. XX ; S. B. E., Vlil, p. 311.
KSHATRIYAS AND BRAHMANS. 9
leading, and the less we avail ourselves of it the better
we shall be able to understand the true state of society
in the ancient times of India. Caste is, of course, a Portu-
guese word, and was applied from about the middle of the
sixteenth century by rough Portuguese sailors to certain
divisions of Indian society which had struck their fancy.
It had before been used in the sense of breed or stock,
originally in the sense of a pure or unmixed breed. In
1613 Purchas speaks of the thirty and odd several castes
of the Banians (Va.?vi#). To ask what caste means in India
would be like asking what caste means in England, or
what fetish (feitico) means in Portugal. What we really
want to know is what was implied by such Indian words
as Varna (colour), (Jati (kith), to say nothing of Sapi?wZ-
atva or Samanodakatva, Kula (family), Gotra (race), Pra-
vara (lineage) ; otherwise we shall have once more the same
confusion about the social organisation of ancient India
as about African fetishism or North American totemism!
Each foreign word should always be kept to its own native
meaning, or, if generalised for scientific purposes, it should
be most carefully defined afresh. Otherwise every social
distinction will be called caste, eveiy stick a totem, every
idol a fetish.
We have in India the Aryan settlers on one side, and
the native inhabitants on the other. The former are named
Aryas or Aryas, that is, cultivators of the soil which they
had conquered ; the latter, if submissive to their conquerors,
are the jS'udras1 or Dasas, slaves, while the races of indi-
genous origin who remained hostile to the end, were classed
as altogether outside the pale of political society. The
Aryas in India were naturally differentiated like other
people into an intellectual or priestly aristocracy, the
Brahmans, and a fighting or ruling aristocracy, the Ksha-
triyas, while the great bulk remained simply Vis or Vaisyas,
that is, householders and cultivators of the soil, and after-
wards merchants and mechanics also. To the very last
1 Thus we read as early as the Mnhabharata — 'The three qualities abide
in the three castes thus : darkness in the S'udni, passion in the Kshatriya,
and the highest, goodness, in the Brahinafta.' (Aiiugita, S. B. E., VIII,
P- 329-)
IO INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
the three great divisions, Brahmans, Kshatriyas^ and
Vaisyas, shared certain privileges and duties in common.
Originally they were all of them called twice-born, and
not only allowed, but obliged to be educated in Vedic
knowledge and to pass through the three or four Asramas
or stages of life. Thus we read in the Mahabharata : ' The
order of Vanaprasthas, of sages who dwell in forests and
live on fruits, roots, and air is prescribed for the three
twice-born (classes) ; the order of householders is prescribed
for all.' (Anugita, S. B. E.; VIII, p. 310.; While the divi^
sion into Aryas and Dasas was due to descent, that into
Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas seems originally to
have been due to occupation only, though it may soon
have acquired an hereditary character. The Brahmans
had to look after the welfare of souls? the Kshatriyas after
the welfare of the body politic, and the Vaisyas represented
originally the undifferentiated mass of the people, engaged
in the ordinary occupations of an incipient civilisation.
The later subdivision of Indian society, as described by
Manu, and as preserved under different forms to the present
day, does not concern us for our present purpose. The
lessons which the names of Varna (colour) and (Jati (genus)
teach us had long been forgotten even in Manu's time, and
are buried at present under a heavy heap of rubbish. Still
even that rubbish heap deserves to be sifted, as I believe
it is now being sifted by scholars like Mr. Risley and
others.
In ancient times neither Kshatriyas nor Vai&yas were
excluded from taking part in those religious and philo-
sophical struggles, which seem to have occupied India far
more than wars of defence or conquest. Nay women also
claimed a right to be heard in their philosophical assem-
blies. The Kshatriyas never surrendered their right to
take part in the discussions of the great problems of life
and death, and they occasionally asserted it with great
force and dignity. Besides, the strong reaction against
priestly supremacy came at lafct from them, for we must
'not iorgot that Buddha also was a Kshatriya, a prince of
Kapilavastu, and that his chief opposition, from a social
and political point of view, was against the privileges of
KING KANAKA. IX
leaching and sacrificing, claimed by the Brahmans as their
exclusive property and against the infallible and divine
character ascribed by them to their Vedas.
•Che Evidence of the Upaaishads, (raxtaka,
If we look back once more to the intellectual life of
India in the ancient Vedic times, or at least in the times
represented to us in the Upanishads, we read there of an
ancient King Garaka, whose fame at the time when the
Upauishads were composed had^ already spread far and
wide (Kaush. Up. IV, i ; Brih. Ar. Up. II, i, i). He was
a king of the Videhas, his capital was Mithila, and his
daughter, Sita, is represented to us in later times as the
famous wife of Rama (Rarnapurvatap. Up.). But in the
Upanishads he is represented, not as a successful genera. I
or conqueror, not so much as a brave knight, victorious
in chivalrous tournaments. We read of him as taking
part in metaphysical discussions, as presiding over philo-
sophical councils, as bestowing his patronage on the most
eminent sages of his kingdom, as the friend of Ya(//?avalkya,
one of the most famous philosophical teachers of the
Upaninhad period. When performing1 a great sacrifice,
this king sets apart a day for a B rah mod yam, a dispu-
tation in which philosophers, such as Ya<7//avalkya, Asvala,
Artabhaga, and even women, such as Gargi, the daughter
of Va&aknu (Brih. Ar. Up. Ill, i, 5), take an active part.
To the victor in these disputations the king promised
a reward of a thousand cows with ten pa das of gold fixed
to, their horns. As Yagr/?avalkya claimed these cows on
account of his superior knowledge, the other Brahmans
present propounded a number of questions which he was
expected to answer in order to prove his superiority. And
BO he does. The first question is how a man who offers
a sacrifice can be freed thereby from the fetters of death.
Then follow questions such as, While death swallows the
whole world, who is the deity that shall swallow death?
What becomes of the vital spirits when a man dies ? What
is it that does not forsake man in the hour of death?
* Kaushitaki Up. IV, i. ; B/rh. Ar. Up. Ill, i.
12 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
What becomes of man after his speech at death has entered
the fire, his breath the wind, his eye the sun, hisA mind the
moon, his ear space, his body the earth, his Atman the
ether, the hairs of his body the herbs, the hair of his head
the trees, his blood and seed the \vaters ? Whither did the
descendants of King Parikshit go? What* is the soul?
What contains the worlds? Who rules everything and
yet is different from everything? Far be it from me to
say that these and other questions were answered by
Ya#r7avalkya in a manner xthat would seem satisfactory
to ourselves. What is important to us is that such ques-
tions should have been asked at all, that they should have
formed the staple of public discussion at that early time,
a time previous to the • establishment qf Buddha's religion
in India, in the fifth century B.C.. and that his answers
should have satisfied his contemporaries. 7'iere is no other
country in the world where in such ancient times such
disputations would have been thought of, unless it were
in Egypt. Neither Menelaos nor Priam would have pre-
sided over them, neither Achilles nor Ulysses would have
shone in them. That these disputations took place in
public and in the presence of the king we have no reason
to doubt. Besides, there is one passage (Brih. Ar. Up. Ill,
2, 13) where we areAtold expressly that th$ two disputants,
Yarpavalkya arid Artabhaga, retired into a private place
in order to come to an understanding about one question
which, as they thought, did not admit of being discussed
in public.
Do we know of any other country where at that early
time such religious congresses would have been thought of,
and royal rewards bestowed on those who were victorious
in these philosophical tournaments ?
One of the sayings of 6?anaka has remained famous in
Indian literature for ever, and deserves to remain so. Whe-n
his capital, Mithila, was destroyed by a conflagration, he
turned round and said, ' While Mithila is burning,jaothing
that is mine is burnt.'
Very curious is another feature, that, namely, in these
public assemblies not only was a royal reward bestowed
on the victor but the vanquished was sometimes threatened
AtfATASATRTT. 13
with losing his head1. Nor was this a threat only, but
it actually happened, we are told, in the case of >Sakalya
(B^h. Ar. Up. Ill, 9, 26). Must we withhold our belief
from such statements, because we have learnt to doubt
the burnt hand of Mucius Scaevola and the suicide of
Lucretia? I believe not, for the cases are not quite
parallel.
Besides these public disputations, we also read of private
conferences in which Ya///7avalkya enlightens his royal
patron (?anaka, and after receiving every kind of present
from him is told at last that the king gives him the whole
of his kingdom, nay surrenders himself to him as his slave.
We may call all this exaggerated, but we have no right to
call it mere invention, for such stories would hardly have
been invented, if they had sounded as incredible in India
itself as they sound to us. (Br?'h. IV, 4, 23.)
It is true we meet in the Upanishads with philosophical
dialogues between gods and men also, such as Kaush. Up.
Ill, i, between Indra and Pratardana, between Sanatku-
mara, the typical warrior deity, and Narada, the repre-
sentative of the Br&hmans, between Pragapati, Indra, and
Virofcana, between Yama, the god of death, and Naiiketas.
But though these are naturally mere inventions, such as
we find everywhere in ancient times, it does not follow
that the great gatherings of Indian sages presided over by
their kings should be equally imaginary. Even imagina-
tion requires a certain foundation in fact.
We have a record of another disputation between a King
A^atasatru and the Brahman Balaki, and here again it is
the king who has to teach the Brahman, not vice versa.
A<7&tasatru was king of Kasi (Benares), and must have
been later than (?anaka, as he appeals to his fame as widely
established. When he has convinced Balaki of the insuffi-
1 I translate vi pat by l to fall off,' not by < to burst,* and the causative
by * to maJte fall off,' i. e. to cut off. Would not ' to bucst ' have been
vipaf?
8 Kaushitaki Up. IV, a ; Erik. ir. Up. II, i.
14 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
ciency of the information which this learned Br&hman
had volunteered to impart to him, the proud Braliman
actually declares himself the pupil of the king *.
I do not mean, however, to deny that originally the rela-
tion between the kings and the sages of ancient India was
that which we see represented, for instance, in the case of
King ffanasruti and the Brahman Raikva, who contemptu-
ously rejects all offers of friendship from the king, till at
last the king, "has fco offer him not only gold and laud (the
Raikvapama villages in the country of the Mah&vr£shas)
but his own daughter, in order to secure his amity and hifl
instruction. But though this may have been the original
relation between Brahmans and Kshatriyas, and remained
so to the time represented by M'anu's Law-book, the warrior
class had evidently from a very early time produced a
number of independent thinkers who were able to grapple
with and to hold their own against the priests, nay, who
were superior to them particularly in one subject, as we
are told, namely, in their knowledge of the A turns, the
Self, In the Maitrayana-upanishad we read of King Brih-
adratha who gives up his kingdom, retires into the forest,
and is instructed by the sage S&kayanya, whose name may
contain the first allusion to $akas and their descendants in
India. Such a royal pupil would naturally in the course
of his studies become a sage and teacher himself.
Again, in the Kh&nd. Up, V, 1 1 we see a number of
eminent Brahmans approaching King Asvapati Kaikeya,
and making themselves his pupils. The question which
they discuss is, What is our Self and what is Brahman
(V, ii, i) ? and this question the king was supposed t j be
able to answer better than any of the Brahmans.
Buddhist Period.
When we leave the period represented by the Upani-
shads, and turn our eyes to tha/fc which follows and which
is marked by the rise and growth of Buddhism, we find no
1 See also the dialogue between Sanatkumara and Narada (JEMnd. Up.
VII, a, i).
BUDDHIST PERIOD. 15
very sudden change in the intellectual life of the country,
as represented to us In the Sacred writings of the Buddhists.
Though there is every reason to suppose that their sacred
code, the original text of the Tripifaka, belongs to the third
century B.C., and was settled and recited, though not written
down, during the reign of Asoka, we know at all events
that it was reduced to writing in the first century before
our era, and we may therefore safely accept its descriptions
as giving us a true picture of what took, place in India
while Buddhism was slowly but surely supplanting the
religion of the Veda, even in its latest offshoots, the Upani-
shads. It seems to me a fact of the highest importance
that *he Buddhists at the time when their Suttas were
composed, were acquainted with the Upanishads and the
Sutras, at all events with the very peculiar names of these
literary compositions. We must not, however, suppose that
as soon as Buddhism arose Vedism disappeared from the
soil of India, India is a large country, and Vedism may
have continued to flourish in the West while Buddhism
was gaining its wonderful triumphs in the East and the
South. We have no reason to doubt that some of the later
Upanishads were composed long after King Asoka had
extended his patronage to the Buddhist fraternity. Nay,
if we consider that Buddha died about 477 B.C., we# are
probably not far wrong if we look upon the doctrines to
which he gave form and life, as represented originally by
one of the many schools of thought which were springing
up in India during the period of the Upanishads, and which
became later on the feeders of what are called in India th,e
six great systems of philosophy. Buddha, however, if we
may retain that name for the, young prince of Kapilavastu,
who actually gave up his palace and made himself a beggar,
was not satisfied with teaching a philosophy, his ambition
was to found a new society. His object was to induce
people to withdraw from the world and to live a life of
abstinence and meditation in hermitages or monasteries.
The description of the daily life of these Buddhist monks,
and even of the Buddhist laity, including kings and nobles,
may seem to us at first sight as incredible as what we saw
before in the Upanishads.
1 6 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Prosenagit and Bimbisara.
We read in the Tripitfaka, the sacred code of the Buddhists,
of King Prasenagit, of Kosala, drawing near to Buddha and
sitting down respectfully at one side before venturing to
ask him a question (Samyutta Nikaya III, I, 4). We read
likewise of King Bimbisara, of Magadha,. showing the same
respect and veneration to this poor monk before asking
him any questions or making any suggestions to him.
Bante or -Lord is the title by which the paramount
sovereigns of India address these mendicants, the followers
of Buddha.
Brahma-^ala- su t ta .
If we want to get an idea of the immense wealth and
variety of philosophic thought by which Buddha found
himself surrounded on every side, we cannot do better
than consult one of the many Suttas or sermons, supposed
to have been preached by Buddha himself, and now forming
part of the Buddhist canon, such as, for instance, the
Brahma-<7ala-sutta *.
We are too apt to imagine that both the believers in the
Veda and the followers of Buddha formed compact bodies,
each being held together by generally recognised articles
of faith. But this can hardly have been so, as we read in
the Brahma-#ala-sutta that even among the disciples who
followed Buddha, some, such as Brahmadatta, spoke in
support of Buddha, in support of his doctrines and his
disciples, while others, such as Suppiya, spoke openly
against all the three. Though there was a clear line of
demarcation between Brahmans and Samanas or Buddhists,
as far as their daily life and outward ceremonial were
concerned, the two are constantly addressed together by
Buddha, particularly when philosophical questions are
discussed. BrahmaTia is often used by him as a mere
expression of high social rank, and he who is most eminent
in knowledge and virtue is even by Buddha himself called
1 We possess now an excellent translation of this Sutta by Rhys Davids.
The earlier translations by Gogerly, by Grimblot (Sept Suttas Palis, 1876),
were very creditable for the time when they were made, but have now
been superseded.
B-RAH? * A-0ALA-SUTTA. I J
1 a true BrahmaTia.' Brahman with us is often used in
two senses which should be kept distinct, meaning, either
a member of the first caste, or one belonging to the three
castes of the twice-born Aryas, who are under the spiritual
sway of the Brahmans.
We must try to get rid of the idea that Brahmans and
Buddhists were always at daggers drawn, and divided the
whole of India between themselves. Their relation was
not originally very different from that between different
ystems of philosophy, such as the Vedanta and Samkhya,
which, though they differed, were but seldom inflamed
against each other by religious hatred.
In the Brahma- (/ala-sutta, i.e. the net of Brahma, in
which all philosophical theories are supposed to have been
caught like so many fishes, we can discover the faint traces
of some of the schools of philosophy which we shall have
to examine hereafter. Buddha mentions no less than sixty-
two of them, with many subdivisions, and claims to be
acquainted with every one of them, though standing him-
self above them all.
There are some Samanas and Br&hmans, we are told1,
who are eternalists, and who proclaim that both the soul
and the world are eternal2. They profess to^be able to
remember an endless succession of former births, including
their names, their lineage, and their former dwelling-places.
The soul, they declare, is eternal, and the world, giving
birth to nothing new, is steadfast as a mountain peak.
Living creatures transmigrate, but they are for ever and
ever.
There are some Samanas and Brahmans who are eternal-
ists with regard to some things, but not with regard to
others. They hold that the soul and the world are partly
eternal, and partly not. According to them this world-
system will pass away, and there will then be beings reborn
in the World of Light (Abhassara), made of mind only,
feeding on joy, ' radiating light, traversing the air and
continuing in glory for a long time. Here follows a most
1 Brahma-r/ala-siitta, translated by Rhys Davids, p.
8 This would be like the Sasvata-vada.
2 C
l8 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
peculiar account of how people began to believe in one
personal Supreme Being, or in the ordinary God. When
the world-system began to re-evolve, tiiere appeared (they
say) the palace of Brahm&, but it was empty, Then a
certain being fell from the World of Light and came to
life in the palace of Brahma. After remaining there in
perfect joy for a long period, he became dissatisfied and
longed for other beings. And just then other beings fell
from the World of 'Light, in all respects like him. But he
who had come first b^gan to think that he was Brahm&
the Supreme, the Euler, the Lord of all, the Maker and
Creator, the Ancient of days, the Father of all. that are and
are to be. The other beings he looked upon as created by
himself, because as soon as he had wished for them, they
had come. Nay, these beings themselves also thought that
he must be the Supreme Brahma, because he was there
first and they came after him, and it was thought that
this Brahma must be eternal and remain for ever, while
those who came after him were impermanent, mutable, and
limited in duration of life.
This Brahma reminds one of the tsvara of the Samkhya
and other philosophies, which as Brahm&, masc., must be
distinguished from Brahma, neuter. Then we are told
that there are some gods who spend their lives in sexual
pleasures and then fall from their divine state, while
others who abstain from such indulgences remain stead-
fast, immutable, and eternal. Again, that there are certain
gods so full of envy that their bodies become feeble and
their mind imbecile. These fall from their divine state,
while others who are free from such failings remain stead-
fast, immutable, and eternal.
Lastly, some Samana^ and Brahmans are led to the
conclusion that eye, ear, nose, tqngtie, and body form an
impermanent Self, while heart or mind or consciousness
form a permanent Self, and therefore will remain for ever
steadfast, immutable, and eternal.
Next follows another class of speculators who are called
Antanantikas, and who set forth the infinity and finiteness
of the world. They maintain either that the world is finite
or that it is infinite, or that it is infinite in height and
BRAHMA-tfALA-SUTTA. 1 9
depth but finite in lateral extension, or lastly, that it is
neither finite nor infinite.
The next description of the various theories held by
either Samanas or Brahmaiias seems to refer to what is
known as the Syadvada, the theory that everything may
be or may not be. Those who hold to this are called
wriggling eels. They will not admit any difference be-
tween good and bad, and they will not commit themselves
to saying that there is another world or that there is not,
that there is chance in the world or that there is not, that
anything has a result or reward or that it has not, that
man continues after death or that he does not.
It \7ould seein. according to some of the Suttas, that
Buddha himself was often disinclined to commit himself
on some of the great questions of philosophy and religion.
He was often in fact an agnostic on points which he con-
sidered beyond the grasp of the human mind, and Maha-
vira, the founder of Grainism, took the same view, often
taking refuge in Agnosticism or the Atqwanavada l.
Next, there are Samanas and Brahmans who hold that
everything, the soul and the world, are accidental and
without a cause, because the}^ can remember that formerly
• they were not and now they are, or because they prove by
means of logic that the soul and the whole world arose
without a cause.
Furthermore, there are Sarnanas and Brahmans who
hold and defend the doctrine of a conscious existence after
death, but they differ on several points regarding this
conscious existence.
Some maintain that the conscious soul after death has
form, others that it has no form, others again that it has
and has not, and others that it neither has nor has not'
form. Some say it is finite, others that it is infinite, that
it is both and that it is neither. Some say that it has one
mode of consciousness, others that it has various modes of
consciousness, others that it has limited, others that it has
unlimited consciousness. Lastly, it is held that the soul
after death is happy, is miserable, is both or is neither.
1 M. M., Natural Religion, p. 105,
c a
20 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
There are, however, others who say that the soul after
death is unconscious, and while in that state has either
form, or no form, has and has not, or neither has nor has
not form ; that it is finite, infinite, both or neither.
Again, there are some Samanas and Brahmans who teach
the entire annihilation of all living beings. Their argu-
ments are various, and have in their general outlines been
traced back to some of the teachers of Buddha, such as
Alara Kalama, Uddalaka and others J. They uphold the
doctrine of happiness in this life, and maintain that com-
plete salvation is possible here on earth. Thus when the
soul is in perfect enjoyment of the five pleasures of the
senses, ~they call that the highest Nirvana. Against this
view, however, it is said that sensuous delights are tran-
sitory and always involve pain, and that therefore the
highest Nirvana consists in putting away all sensuous
delights and entering into the first GMna,' i. e. Dhyana,
that is, a state of joy born of seclusion and followed by
reflection and meditation. Against this view, again, it is
asserted that such happiness involves reasoning, and is
therefore gross, while the highest Nirvana can only arise
when all reasoning has been' conquered and the soul has
entered the second (Mana, a state of joy, born of serenity
without reasoning, a state of elevation arid internal calm.
But even this does not satisfy the true Buddhist, because
any sense of joy must be gross, and true Nirvana can only
consist in total absence of all longing after joy and thus
entering into the third CrMna, serene and thoughtful.
Lastly, even this is outbidden. The very dwelling of the
mind on care and joy is declared to be gross, and the final
Nirvana is said to be reached in the fourth C?Mna only,
a state of self-possession and complete equanimity.
This abstract may give an idea of the variety of philo-
sophical opinions which were held in India at or even before
the time of Buddha. The Brahma-^ala-sutta professes that
all speculations about the past and the future aro included
in this Sutta of the net of Brahma. By division and sub-
division there are said to be sixty-two theories, arranged
1 Rhys Davids, 1 c., p. 48.
MAHABH ARATA. 2 1
into two classes so far as they are concerned either with
the past or with the future of the soul ; the soul, as it
seems, being always taken for granted.
The extraordinary part is that in the end all these
theories, though well known by Buddha, are condemned
by him as arising from the deceptive perceptions of the
senses, which produce desire, attachment, and th6refore,
reproduction, existence, birth, disease, death, sorrow, weep-
ing, pain, grief, and misery, while Buddha alone is able
to cut off the root of all error and all misery, and to impart
the truth that leads to true Nirvana.
It does not seem, indeed, as if the philosophical teaching
of Buddha himself was so very different at first from that
of other schools which had flourished before and' during
his lifetime in India ; nay, we can often perceive clear
traces of a distant relationship between Buddhism and the
six orthodox systems of philosophy. Like streams, all
springing from the same summit, they run on irrigating
the same expanse of country without proving in the least
that one channel of thought was derived from another, as
has been so often supposed in the case particularly of
Buddhism in its relation to the Samkhya philosophy,
as known to* us from the Karikas and Sutras.
Though the Brahma-grala-sutta does not enter into full
•details, which may be gathered from other Suttas, it shows
at all events how large a number of philosophical schools
was in existence then, and how they differed from each
other on some very essential points.
Mah&bh&rata.
If now we compare one of the numerous passages in, the
Mahabharata, containing descriptions of the philosophical
sects then flourishing in India, we shall be struck by the
great, almost verbal, similarity between their statements
and those which we have just read in the Buddhist
Brahma-gala-sutta. Thus we read in the Anugita, chap.
XXIV : ' We observe th& various forms of piety to be
as it were contradictory. Some say piety remains after
the body is destroyed ; -some say that it is not so. Some say
everything is doubtful ; and others that there is no doubt.
22 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Some say the permanent principle is impermanent and
others, too, that it exists, and others that it exists and
does not exist. Some say it is of one form or twofold,
and others that it is mixed. Some Br£hma%as, too, who •
know Brahman and perceive the truth, believe that it is
one ; others that it is distinct ; and others again that it
is manifold. Some say both time and space exist, and
others that it is not so. Some have matted hair and skins ;
and some are clean-shaven and without any covering/
This last can only refer to the followers of Buddha, what
ever the ds^te of our Mahabharata may be. * Some people
are for bathing ; some for the omission of bathing. Some
are for taking food; others are intent on fasting. .Some
people extol actions, and others tranquillity. Some extol
final emancipation and various kinds of enjoyments ; some
wish for riches, and others for indigence/
The commentator NilakantfAa refers all these remarks
to certain sects known to us from other sources. ' Some
hold/ he says, ' that the Self exists after the body is lost ;
others, that is, the Lokayatas or Jf&rvakas, hold 'the con-
trary. Everything is doubtful, is the view of the Satya-
vadins (Sy&dvadins ?) ; nothing is doubtful, that of the
Tairthikas, the great teachers. Everything is impermanent,
thus say the Tarkikas ; it is permanent, say the Mimamsa-
kas; nothing exists, say the $unyavadins ; something
exists, but only momentarily, say the Saugatas or Buddhists.
Knowledge is one, but the ego and non-ego are two dif-
ferent principles, thus say the YogaHras ; they are mixed,
say the Uduiomas ; they are one, such is the view of the
worshippers of the Brahman as possessed of qualities ; they
are. distinct, say other Mimamsakas, who hold that special
acts are the cause (of everything) ; manifdkl they are, say
the atom is ts ; time and space they are, say the astrologers.
Those who say that it is not so, that is to say, that what we
see has no real existence at all, are the ancient philosophers ;
omission to bathe l is the rule of the NaishtfAika Brahrna-
/dirms ; bathing that of the householders/
1 Does not this refer to' the solemn bathing which is the first step
towards the stage of a Grihastha or independent householder?
BUDDHA. 23
Thus both ȣrom Buddhistic and Brahmanic sources we
learn the same fact the existence of a large number of re-
ligious and philosophical sects in the ancient days of
India.
Buddha.
Out of the midst of this whirlpool of philosophical
opinions there rises the form of Buddha, calling for a
hearing, at first, not as the herald of any brand new philo-
sophy, which he lias to teach, but rather as preaching
a new gospel to the poor. I cannot help thinking that
it was Buddha's marked personality, far more than his
doctrine, that gave him the great influence on his con-
temporaries and on so many generations after his death.
Whether he existed or not. such as he -is described to
us in the Suttas, there must have been some one, not
a mere name, but a real power in the history of India,
a man who made a new epoch in the growth of Indian
philosophy, and still more of Indian religion and ethics.
His teaching must have acted like a weir across a swollen
river. And no wonder, if we consider that Buddha was
a prince or nobleman who gave up whatever there was
of outward splendour pertaining to his rank. He need
not have been a powerful prince, as some have imagined,
but he belonged to the royal dass, and it does not appear
that he and his house had any suzerain over them. Like
several of the philosophers in the Upanishads, he was
a Kshatriya, and the very fact of his making himself a
popular teacher and religious reformer attracted attention
as a social anomaly in the eyes of the people. We see in
fact that one of the principal accusations brought against
him, at a later time, was that he had arrogated to himself the
privilege of being a teacher, a privilege that had always
been recognised as belonging to those only who were
Brahmans by birth. And as these Brahinans had always
been not only the teachers of the people, but likewise the
counsellors of princes, we find Buddha also not only
patronised, but consulted by the kings of his own time.
Curiously enough one of these kings has the name
of A^atatatru, a name well known to us from the
24 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Upanishads. He, the son of Vaidehi, a Videha princess,
sends two of his ministers, who were Brahmans by birth,
to Buddha in order to consult him on what he ought to
do. It has been supposed by some scholars that this is the
same Ac/atasatru, king of Kaa (or Benares), who, as we
saw in the Upanishads, silenced the Brahman Balaki
(Kaush. Up. IV, 2, i). But, according to others, A</ata-
satru, i. e. ' without an enemy/ should be taken, like Deva-
nam priya, as a general title of royalty, not as a proper
name l. However that may be, the coincidence is certainly
striking, and requires further explanation. At all events,
we see that, as in the Upanishads, so in the Tripitfaka also,
kings appear as friends and patrons of a philosopheT, such
as Buddha, long before he had become recognised as the
founder of a new religion, that they take a prominent part
in public assemblies, convened for discussing the great pro-
blems of religion and philosophy, or afterwards for settling
the canon of their religious texts. The best known are
Bimbisara, king of Magadha, and Prasenagit, king of Ko&ala.
There is in this respect a clear continuity between the
Upanishads and the earliest appearance of Buddhism ; and
if some of the tenets and technical terms of the Buddhists
also are the same as those of the Hindu schools of philo-
sophy, there would be as little difficulty in accounting for
this as for the continuity between Sanskrit and Pali, The
Buddhist monk was clearly prefigured in the Parivraf/aka
or itinerant mendicant of the Upanishads (Bnh. Ill, 5).
, The name of Buddha, as the awakened and enlightened,
^ould hardly be understood without the previous employ-
ment of the root Budh in the Veda ; nor Bhikshu, beggar,
without Bhiksh, to beg in the Upanishads. Nirvana, it is
true, occurs in later Upanishads only, but if this shows that
they are post- Buddhistic, it suggests at the same time that the
old Upanishads must have been pre- Buddhistic. Para gati,
the highest goal, is taken from the dictionary of the Upani-
shads, and possibly Ifakrapravartana, the turning of the
wheel 2, also is taken from the same source.
4 S. B. E., XI, p. i, note.
2 Cf. Anugita, chiip. XVII : * You are the one person to turn this wheel,
the nave of which is the Brahman, the spoke the understanding, and
BUDDHA. 25
But though Buddhism and the Upanishads share many
things in common which point back to the same distant
antiquity, Buddhism in its practical working produced
a complete social revolution in India. Though it did not
abolish caste, as has sometimes been supposed, it led to
a mixture of classes which had formerly been kept more
carefully distinct. Anybody, without reference to his birth,
could join the Buddhist fraternity, if only he was of good
report and free from certain civil disabilities. He could
*.hen become an itinerant (Parivra(/aka) friar, without any of
that previous discipline which was required from a Brahman.
Once a member of the Samgha, he was free from all family
ties and allowed to support himself by charitable gifts
(Bhiksna). Though kings and noblemen who had embraced
the doctrines of Buddha were not obliged to become actual
mendicants and join the fraternity, they could become
patrons and lay sympathisers (Upasakas), as we see in the
case of the kings already mentioned, and of wealthy persons
such as Anathapi?icKka. Whenever the Buddhist friars
appeared in villages or towns, they seem to have been
received with splendid hospitality, and the arrival of
Buddha himself with his six hundred or more disciples
was generally made the occasion of great rejoicings, in-
cluding a public sermon, a public discussion, and other
entertainments of a less spiritual character.
In fact, if we may judge from the Tripitfaka, the whole
of India at the time of Buddha would seem once more
to have been absorbed in religion and philosophy ; nay, the
old saying that the Indians are a nation of philosophers
would seem to have never been so true as at the time
of the great Buddhist Councils, held, we are told, at B%a-
grjha, at Vaisali, and later on at the new residence of
Asoka, Patfaliputra.
This A«soka, like Cranaka of old, took the warmest interest
in the proceedings of that Council. It is perhaps too much
to say that he made Buddhism the state-religion of India.
There never was such a thing as a state-religion in India.
Aboka certainly extended his patronage, formerly confined
which does not turn back, and which is checked by the quality of
goodness as its circumference.'
26 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
to Brahmans only, to the new brotherhood founded by
Buddha, but there was nothing in India corresponding to
a Defender of the Faith.
It might be objected, no doubt, that the authorities on
which we have to rely for a description of the intellectual
state of India at the time of these Councils, even that of
Asoka, 242 B. c., are one-sided and exaggerated ; but when
we consult the Mahabharata which, in its earlier elements,
at all events, may be assigned to the same Buddhistic
period, we get just the same picture. We meet among
the Brahmans as among the Buddhists with an immense
variety of philosophical and religious thought, represented
by schools and sects striving against each other, ,not yet
by persecution, but by serious argumentation.
Greek Accounts.
Nor are the scant accounts which the Greeks have left
us of what they saw during and after the invasion of
India by Alexander the Great at variance with what we
learn from these native authorities. Nothing struck the
Greeks so much as the philosophical spirit which seemed
to pervade that mysterious country. When Megasthenes *,
the ambassador of Seleucus Nicator at the court of A'and-
ragupta (Sandrocottus), describes what he saw in India
in the third century B.C., he speaks of gymnosophists living
on mountains or in the plains, having their abode in groves
in front of cities within moderate-sized enclosures. * They
live/ he writes, ' in a simple style, and lie on beds of rushes
or skins. They abstain from animal food and sexual
pleasures, and spend their time in listening to serious
discourse and in imparting their knowledge to such as will
listen to them.' The so-called /S'armanas mentioned by
Megasthenes, have generally been accepted as representing
the $ramaftas or Samanas, the members of the Buddhist
brotherhood who then seemed to have lived most amicably
with the Brahmans. Nothing at least is said of any
personal enmity between them, however much they may
have differed in their philosophical and religious opinions.
1 Ancient India, by J. W. McCrindle, 1877, p. 97seq..
GREEK ACCOUNTS. 27
His Hvlobioi or forest-dwellers are probably meant for the
Brahrnanic Vanaprp°thas, the members of the third A&rama
who had to live in the forest, at a certain distance from
their villages, and give themselves up to asceticism and
meditation, such as we see described in the Upanishads.
Even if their name did not tell us, we are distinctly
informed that they lived in the forest, subsisting on leaves
and wild fruits, and wore garments made of the bark of
trees (Valkala) \ They communicated, we are told, with
bings, who, like Cranaka and A-t/atasatru, Prasenac/it and
Bimbisara, or in later times King Harsha, consulted them
by messengers regarding the causes of things, and who
through them worshipped and supplicated their gods.
Clement of Alexandria, after repeating all this, adds at the
end that there are also philosophers in India who follow
the precepts of Butta, whom they honour as a god on
account of his extraordinary holiness. This is the first
Greek mention of Buddjia, for no one else can have been
meant * by Clement. The name was never mentioned by
Alexander's companions, though there are early coins,
which point to Greek influence, with the figure and name
of Boddo. We are also told that these philosophers
practised fortitude, both by undergping active toil, and
by enduring pain, remaining for whole days motionless in
a fixed attitude.
Buddhist Pilgrims, Hiouen-tlisang-.
Some centuries later we have another and independent
source of information as to the intellectual state of India,
and this also is in perfect accordance with what we have
hitherto learnt about India as the home of philosophers.
Beginning with the fourth century of our era, that is, at
the time when what I call the Renaissance of Sanskrit
literature and national independence began, Chinese
Buddhists, who made their pilgrimages to India as to
their Holy Land, described to us the state of the country
such as they saw it. Those who came early, such as
Fa-hian, saw Buddhism flourishing in the fifth century,
1 Clement Alex., Strom, i. p. 305, adds that they neither live in cities
nor even in houses.
28 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
those who caine later in the sixth and seventh
witnessed already the evident signs of 'its decline. The
most important among them was Hiouen-thsang who visited
India from 629 to 645, and whose travels have been trans-
lated by my late friend, Stanislas Julien. No one can
doubt 'the trustworthiness of this witness, though he may-
have been deceived in some of his observations. He
describes the Buddhist monasteries scattered all over the
country, the schools of the most illustrious teachers whose
lectures' he attended, and their public assemblies, par
ticularly those that took place at the court of /Siladitya
Harshavardhana 610-650, commonly called Srl-Harsha of
Kanyakub^ra. This king, who is described as having con-
quered the five Indias, seems to have been in his heart
a Buddhist, though he bestowed hik patronage and pro-
tection on all sects alike, whether followers of the Vedas or
of Buddha. No one, we are told, was allowed to eat flesh
in his dominions, and whoever had killed a living thing
was himself put to death1. He built many hospitals and
monasteries, and entertained many Buddhist friars at his
own expense. Every year he assembled the $ramawas
from different kingdoms, and made them discuss in his
presence the most important points of Buddha's doctrine.
Each disputant had his chair, and the king himself was
present to judge of their learning and their good behaviour.
Hiouen-thsang. who by this time had made hirnself & pro-
ficient Sanskrit scholar and Buddhist theologian, having
studied the Buddhist writings under .some of the most
illustrious teachers of the time, was invited by the king to
be present at one of these great assemblies, on the southern
bank of the Ganges. Twenty kings were gathered there,
each bringing with him both /Sramarms and Brahmanas.
A large camp was constructed, and every day rich alms
were bestowed on the $ramanas. This, as it would seem,
excited the anger of some Brahmans who were present.
They tried to set fire to the camp and the magnificent
buildings erected by the king. And when they failed in
this, they actually hired an assassin to kill the monarch.
1 Memoires «ur les Contr6e» Occidentals, Juliea, i. p. 251 seq.
CHINESE ACCOUNTS. 2Q
The k;ng, however, escaped, and forgave the would-be
assassin, but exiled a large number of Brahmans from his
kingdom. This gives us the first idea of what at that time
religious persecution meant on the part of Buddhists as well
as of Brahmans. These persecutions may have been
exaggerated, but they cannot be altogether denied. Hiouen-
thsang himself seems to have taken an active part in this
Congress of Religion, and I still believe it was he who is
mentioned by his Sanskrit name as * Mokshadeva ' or as
•the ' Master of the TripUaka.' After making all reasonable
deductions, such as we should make in the case of the
descriptions of any enthusiastic witness, enough seems to
me to remain to show that from the time of the Upanishads
to the time of Hiouen-thsang's sojourn in India, one domi-
nant interest pervaded the whole country, the interest in
the great problems of humanity here on earth. While
in other countries the people at large cared more for their
national heroes, as celebrated in their epic poetry on
account of their acts of bravery or cunning, India under
the sway of its Vedic poets, most of them of a priestly
rather than a warrior origin, remained true to its character.
Its kings surrounded themselves with a court of sages
rather than of warriors, and the people at large developed
and strengthened their old taste for religious and philo-
sophical problems that has endured for centuries, and is
not extinct even at the present day. Of course, if we call
the people of India a nation of philosophers, this is not
meant to deny that the warrior class also had their popular
heroes, and that their achievements also excited the interest
of the people. India is large enough for many phases of
thought. We must not forget that even in the Vedic
hymns Indra, the most popular of thoir gods, was a warrior.
The two great epic poems are there to testify that hero-
worship is innate in the human heart, and that in early
days men and even women placed muscle higher than
brain. But many even of these epic heroes have a tinge of
philosophical sadness about them, and Argruna, the greatest
among them, is at the same time the recipient of the
highest wisdom communicated to him by Krish?ia, as
described in the Bhagavad-gita.
30 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Krish?*a himself, the hero of the Bhagavad-gita, was of
Kshatriya origin, and was looked upon as the very incar-
nation of • the Deity. It is curious that the Sanskrit
language has no word for epic poetry. Itihasa refers to
the matter rather than to the poetical form of what we
should call epic poems, and the Hindus, strange to say,,
speak of their Mahabharata as a Law-book, Dharma-
xAstra *, and to a certain extent it may have fulfilled that
purpose.
Xing' Harsha,
If the account given by Hiouen-thsang of the spiritual
state of India at the time of his visit and of his stay at the
court of Harsha should seem to be tinged too much by the
sentiments of the Buddhist priest, we have only to con-
sult the history of Harsha as written in Sanskrit by Barm,
to feel convinced of the faithfulness of his account. No
doubt Hiouen-thsang looked at India with the eyes of
a follower of Buddha, but Ba??a also, though not a
Buddhist, represents to us the different schools and
teachers, whether followers of Buddha or of the Veda, as
living together apparently in perfect peace, and obeying
the orders of the same king. They would naturally discuss
their differences and exchange opinions on points on which
they were agreed or opposed to each other, but of violent
persecutions by one side or the other, or of excommunica-
tions and massacres, we hear very little or nothing The
king himself, the friend and patron of Hiouen-thsang,
tolerated both Buddhism and Brahmanism in his realm,
and we feel doubtful sometimes which of the two he
favoured most in his own mind. We see him, for instance,
pay his respects to a sage of the name of Divakara, who
had been by birth and education a Brahman, but had been
converted to Buddha's doctrine, without, as it would seem,
incurring thereby the displeasure of the king or of his
friends. In the Harsha-/ arita2 the king is represented
to us as entering a large forest, surrounded by his retinue.
1 See Diihlmaim, Das MahubMrata.
a Harsha- frarita, translated by Cowell and Thomas, p. 235.
KING HABSHA. 31
When approaching the abode of the sage, the king leaves
his suite behind and proceeds on foot, attended by only
a few of his vassal^. While still at a distance from the
holy man's abode, the king perceived a large number of
'Buddhists from various provinces, perched on pillows,
seated on rocks, dwelling in bowers of creepers, lying in
thickets or in the shadow of branches, or squatting on the
roots of trees, — devotees dead to all passions, (rainas in
white robes (/Svet&mbaras), with mendicants (Bhikshus or
Parivragrakas), followers of Krishna (Bhagavatas), religious
students (Brahmafcarins), ascetics who pulled out their hair,
followers of Kapila fSamkhyas), Rainas, Lokayatikas
(atheists), followers of Ka-nada (Vai^eshikas), followers of
the Upanishads (Vedantins), believers in God as a creator
(Naiyayikas), assayers of metals (?), students of legal
institutes, students of the Pura?ias, adepts in sacrifices
requiring seven priests, adepts in grammar, followers of
the Paw&aratras, and others beside, all diligently following
their own tenets, pondering, urging objections, raising
doubts, resolving them, giving etymologies, and disputing,
discussing, and explaining moot points of doctrine,' and all
this, it would seem, in perfect peace and harmony.
Now I ask once more, is there any other country in the
world of which a similar account could be given, always
the same from century to century ? Such a life as here
described may seem very strange to us, nay, even incredi-
ble, but that is our fault, because we forget the totally
different conditions of intellectual life in India and else-
where. We cannot dissociate intellectual life from cities,
from palaces, schools, universities, museums, and all the
rest. However* the real life of India was not lived in
towns, but in villages and forests. Even at present it
should be remembered that towns are the exception in
India, and that the vast majority of people live in the
country, in villages, and their adjoining groves. Here the
old sages were free to meditate on the problems of life and
on all that is nearest to the heart of man. If they were
not philosophers, let them be called dreamers, but dreamers
of dreams without which life would hardly be worth
living.
32 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
An insight into this state of things seemed J>o me
necessary as a preliminary to a study of Indian philosophy
as being throughout the work of the people rather than
that of a few gifted individuals. As far back as we can
trace the history of thought in India, from the time of
King Harsha and the Buddhist pilgrims back to the
descriptions found in the Mahabharata, the testimonies
of the Greek invaders, the minute accounts of the Buddhists
in their Tripi^aka, and in the end the Upanishads them-
selves, and the hymns of the Veda, we°are met everywhere
by the same picture, a society in which spiritual interests
predominate and throw all material interests into the shade,
a world of thinkers, a nation of philosophers,
CHAPTER IL
The Vedas.
IP after these preliminary remarks we look for the real
beginnings of philosophy on the soil of India, we shall find
them in a stratum where philosophy is hardly differentiated
as yet from religion, and long before the fatal divorce
between religion and philosophy had been finally accom-
plished, that is in the Vedas,
There .have been curious misunderstandings about this
newly-discovered relic of ancient literature, if literature
it may be called, having nothing whatever to do in its
origin with any litera scnpia. No one has ever doubted
that in the Veda we have the earliest monument of
Aryan language and thought, and, in a certain sense,
of Aryan literature which, in an almost miraculous way.
has been preserved to us, during the long night of centuries,
chiefly by means of oral tradition. But seeing that the
Veda was certainly more ancient than anything we possess
of Aryan literature elsewhere, people jumped at the con-
clusion that it. would bring us near tp the very beginning
of all things, and that we should find in the hymns of
the Rig-veda the c very songs of the morning stars and the
shouts of the sons of God.' When these expectations were
disappointed, many of these ancient hymns* turning out
tp be very simple, nay sometimes very commonplace, and
with little of positive beauty, or novel truth, a reaction
set in, as it always does after an excessive enthusiasm.
The Vedic hymns were looked on askance, and it was even
hinted tha* they might be but forgeries of those very
suspicious individuals, the Brahmans or Pandits of India.
In the end, however, the historical school has prevailed,
and the historian now sees that in the Vedas we have
to deal, not with what European philosophers thought
3 D
34 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
ought to have been, but with what is and has be^n ; not
with what is beautiful, but with what is true and his-
torically real. If the Vedic hymns are simple, natural,
and often commonplace, they teach us that very useful
lesson that the earliest religious aspirations of the Aryan
conquerors of India were simple and natural, and often,
from our point of view, very commonplace. This too is
a lesson worth learning. Whatever the Yedas may be
called, they are to us unique and^ priceless guides in
opening before our eyes tombs of thought richer in relics
than the royal tomos of Egypt, and more ancient and
primitive in thought than the oldest hymns of Babylonian
or Accadian poets. If we grant that they belonged to the
second millennium before our era, we are probably on safe
ground, though we should not forget that this is a con-
structive date only, and that such a date does not become
positive by mere repetition. It may be very brave to postu-
late 2000 B.C. or even 500.0 B.C. as a minimum date for the
Vedic hymns, but what is gained by such bravery? Such
assertions are safe so far as they cannot be refuted, but
neither can they be proved, considering that we have no
contemporaneous dates to attach them to. And when
I say that the Vedic hymns are more ancient and primitive
than the oldest Babylonian and Accadian hymns, all that
I mean and could mean is that they contain fewer traces
of an advanced civilisation than the hymns deciphered
from cuneiform tablets, in. which we find mention of such
things as temples in stone and idols of gold, of altars,
sceptres and crowns, cities and libraries, and public squares.
There are thoughts in those ancient Mesopotamian hymns
which would have staggered the poets of the Veda, such as
their chief god being called the king of blessedness, the
light of mankind, &c. We should look in vain in the Veda
for such advanced ideas as * the holy writing of the mouth
of the deep/ ' the god of the pure incantation/ ' thy will
is made known in heaven and the angels bow their faces/
' I fill my hand with a mountain of diamonds, of turquoises
and of crystal/ ' thou art as strong bronze/ ' of bronze and
lead thou art the mingler/ or ' the wide heaven is the
habitation of thy liver/ All this may be very old as far
PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF VEDIC GODS. 35
as the progression of the equinoxes is concerned, but m«the
progress of human thought these ideas mark a point, not
yet reached by the poets of the Veda. In that sense,
whatever their age, these Babylonian hymns are more
modern in thought than the very latest hymns of the
Rig-veda, though I confess that it is that very fact,
the advanced civilisation at that early time which they
reflect, that makes the Babylonian hymns so interesting
in the eyes of the historian. I do not speak here of
philosophical ideas, for we have learnt by this time that
they are of no age and of any age.
Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns, whether
1500 or 15000 B.C., they have their own unique place and
stand by themselves in the literature of the world. They
tell us something of the early growth of the human mind
of which we find no trace anywhere else. Whatever
aesthetic judgements may be pronounced on them, and
there is certainly little of poetical beauty in them, in
the eyes of the historian and the psychologist they will
always retain their peculiar, value, far superior to the
oldest chronicles, far superior to the most ancient inscrip-
tions, for every verse, nay every word in them, is an
authentic document in the history of the greatest empire,
the empire of the human mind, as established in India
in the second millennium B.C.
The Philosophical Basis of the Vedic Gods.
»Let us begin with the simplest beginnings. What can
be simpler than the simple conviction that the regularly
recurring events of nature require certain agents? Animated
by this conviction the Vedic poets spoke not only of rain
(Indu), but of a rainer (Indra), not only of fire and light
as a fact, but of a lighter and burner, an agent of fire and
light, a Dyaus (Zetk) and an Agni (ignis). It seemed
impossible to them that sun and moon should rise every
day, should grow strong and weak again every month
or every year, unless there was an agent behind who
controlled them. We may smile at such thoughts, but
they were natural thoughts, nor would it be easy even
now to prove a negative to this view of the world. One
36 , INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
of these agents they called Savitar (*ue'r??/o, or foVos), the
enlivener, as distinguished yet inseparable from Surya,
the heavenly, the sun, Greek Helios. Soma, from the
same root Su, was likewise at first what enlivens, i.e. the
rain, then the moon which was supposed to send dew and
rain, and lastly the enlivening draught, used for sacrificial
purposes and prepared from a plant called Soma or the
enlivener, a plant known to Brahmans and Zoroastrians
before the separation of the two. Tn this way both the
religion and the mythology of the Vedic sages have a philo-
sophical basis, and deserve our attention, if we wish to
understand the beginnings not only of Indian mythology
and religion, but of Indian philosophy also. ' No, one,' as
Deussen truly says, ' can or should in future talk about
these things who does not know the Kig-vedaV The
process on which originally all gods depended for their
very existence, the personification of, or the activity attri-
buted to the great natural phenomena, while more or less
obscured in all other religions, takes place in the Rig-veda
as it were in the full light of day. The gods of the Vedic,
and indirectly of all the Aryan people, were the agents
postulated behind the great phenomena of nature. This
was the beginning of philosophy, the first application
of the law of causality, and in it we have to recognise
the only true solution of Indo-European mythology, and
likewise of Aryan philosophy. Whatever may have
existed before these gods, we can only guess at, we cannot
watch it with our own eyes, while the creation of Dyaus,
light and sky, of Prithivi, earth, of Varuna, dark sky,
of Agni, fire, and other such Vedic deities, requires neither
hypothesis nor induction. There was the sky, Dyaus,
apparently active, hence there must be an agent called
Dyaus. To say that this Aryan Theogony was preceded
by a period of fetishism or totemism, is simply gratuitous.
At all events, it need not be refuted before it has been
proved. Possibly the naming of the sky as an agent and
as a masculine noun came first, that of the mere objective
sky, as a feminine, second.
1 Deussen, Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie, p. 83.
THREE CLASSES OF VEDIC GODS. 37
Three Classes of Vedic Gods.
We know now by what very simple process the Vedic
Aryas satisfied their earliest craving for causes, how they
created their gods, and divided the whole drama of nature
into three acts and the actors into three classes, those of the
sky, those of mid-air, and those of the earth. To the first
belong Dyaus, the agent of the sky ; Mitra, the agent of the
bright sky and day; Varuna, the agent of the dark sky
and evening; Surya, the agent of the sun; Savit?'i, the
agent of the enlivening or morning sun ; Asvinaii, the twin
agents of morning and evening ; Ushas, the maiden of the
daWri.
To mid-air belong Indra, the agent of the atmosphere in
its change between light and darkness, the giver of rain ;
the Marutas, the agents of the storm-clouds; Vayu and
Vata, the agents of the air ; Pan/anya, the agent of the rain-
cloud ; Rudra, the agent of storm and lightning) and several
others connected with meteoric phenomena.
To the earth belong Prithivi herself, the earth as active ;
Agni, the agent of fire ; Saras vati and other rivers ; some-
times the Dawn also, as rising from the earth as well as
from the sky. These gods were the first philosophy, the
first attempt at explaining the wonders of nature. It is
curious to observe the absence of anything like star- wor-
ship in India among the Aryan nations in general. A few
of the stars only, such as were connected with human
affairs, determining certain seasons, and marking the time
of rain (Hyades), the return of calmer weather (Pleiades),
or the time for mowing (Kr^ttikas), were noticed and
named, but they never rose to the rank of the high gods.
They were less interesting to the dwellers in India, because
they did not exercise the. same influence on their daily life
as they do in Europe. There was of course no settled
system in this pantheon, the same phenomena being often
represented by different agents, and different phenomena
by the same agents. The gods, however, had evidently
been known before they were distributed into three classes,
as gods of the sky, of the earth, and of the clouds t.
1 M. M., Contributions to the Science of Mythology, p. 475.
38 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Other Classifications of Cfods.
If we call this creation and likewise classification of the
Devas or gods, the first philosophy of the human race, we
can clearly see that it was not artificial or the work of one
individual only, but was suggested by nature herself. Earth,
air, and sky, or again, morning, noon, and night, spring,
summer, and winter, are triads clearly visible in nature, and
therefore, under different names and forms, mirrored in
ancient mythology in every part of the world. These triads
are very different from the later number assigned to the
gods. Though the Devas are known in the Rig-veda and
the A vesta as thirty- three, I doubt whether there is any
physical necessity for this number *. It seems rather due
to a taste very common among uncivilised tribes of playing
with numbers and multiplying them to any extent 2. We
see the difficulty experienced by the Brahmans themselves
when they had to fill the number of thirty-three and give
their names. Sometimes they are called three times eleven;
but when we ask who these three times eleven are, we find
no real tradition, but only more or less systematising theories.
We are told that they were the gods in the sky, on earth,
and in the clouds (1, 139, 1 1), or again that they were Vasus,
Rudras, Adityas, Visve Devas, and Maruts 3, but the number
of each of these classes of gods seems to have been originally
seven rather than eleven. Even this number of seven is
taken by some scholars in the general sense of many, like
devanam bhftyish^AaA ; but it is at all events recognised in
the Rig-veda VIII, a#, 5, though possibly in a late verse.
What we look for in- vain in the Veda are the names of
seven Maruts or seven Rudras. We can perhaps make out
seven Vasus, if, as we are told,, they are meant for Agni,
the Adityas, the Marutas, Indra, Ushas, the Asvins and
Rudra. The seven Adityas, too, may. possibly be counted
as Varuwa, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhtaga, Daksha. Am^a, and
Tvashtri, but all this is very uncertain. We see in fact the
three times eleven replaced by the eight Vasus, -the eleven
1 Satap. Br. XII, 6, i, p. 205.
8 Contributions, p. 475.
1 Ved&nta- Sutras I, 3, 28 ; and Rig- Veda X, 125, i.
THE VISVE OR ALL-GODS. 39
Marut? and the. twelve Adityas, to which two other gods
are added as leaders, to bring their number up to the
required thirty-three.
In still later times the number of the Adityas, having
been taken for the solar light in each successive month,
was raised to twelve. I look upon all these attempts at
a classification of the Vedic gods as due once more to the
working of a philosophical or systematismg spirit. It is
not so much the exact number or names of these gods, as
the fact that attempts had been made at so early a time
to comprehend certain gods under the same name, that
interests the philosophical observer.
The Visve or All-gods.
The first step in this direction seems to be represented
by the Visve or the Visve Devas. Visva is different from
Sarva, all. It means the .gods together, Gesammtgotter
(curicti), not simply all the gods (omnes). Sometimes, there-
fore, the two words can be used together, as Taitt. Br. Ill,
i, i, Vfsv& bhuvanani sarva, 'all beings together/ The
Maruts are called Visve MarutaA, in the sense of all the
Maruts together. These Visve, though they belong to the
class-gods (Ga?ias), are different from other class-gods inas-
much as their number is hardly fixed. It would be endless
to give the names 'of all the gods who are praised in the
hymns addressed to the Visve Devas. Indra often stands
at their head (Indraryyesh^a/*), but there is hardly one of
the Vedic gods who does not at times appear as one of them.
What is really important in these Visve is that they repre-
sent the first attempt at comprehending the various gods
as forming a class, so that even the other classes (Ga?ias),
such as Adityas, Vasus, or Rudras may be comprehended
under the wider concept of Visve. It is all the more curious
that this important class, important not only for mytho-
logical but for philosophical and religious purposes also,
should have attracted so little attention hitherto. They
are passed over, as a class, even in that rich treasure-house
of Vedic Mythology, the fifth volume of Muir's Original
Sanskrit Texts, but they ought not to be ignored by those
who are interested in the progress of the ancient rnytho-
4O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
logical religions from given multiplicity to postulated unity,
as an essential character of the godhead.
Tendencies towards Unity among- the Ctodg.
But while this conception of Visve Devas marks the
first important approach from the many incoherent gods
scattered through nature to a gradually more and more
monotheistic phase of thought in the Veda, other move-
ments also tended in the same direction. Several gods,
owing to their position in nature, were seen to perform the
same acts, and hence a poet might well take upon\ himself
to say that Agni not only acted with Indra or Savitri,
but that in certain of his duties Agni was Indra and was
SavitH. Hence arose a number of dual gods, such as Indra-
Agni, Mitra-Varuwau, Agni-Shomau. also the two Asvins.
On other occasions three gods were praised as working
together, such as Aryaman, Mitra and Varuna, or Agni,
Soma and Gandharva, while from another point of view,
Vishnu with his three strides represented originally the
same heavenly being, as rising in the morning, culminating
at noon, and setting in the evening. Another god or god-
dess, Aditi, was identified with the sky and the air, was
called mother, father, and son, was called all the gods and
the five races of men, was called the past and the future.
Professor Weber has strangely misunderstood me if he
imagines that I designated this phase of religious thought
as Henotheism.
Benotheism.
To identify Indra, Agni, and Varuna is one thing, it is
syncretism ; to address either Indra or Agni or Varuria, as
for the time being the only god in existence with an entire
forgetf ulness of all other gods, is quite another ; and it was
this phase, so fully developed in the hymns of the Veda,
which I wished to mark definitely by a name of its own,
calling it Henotheism l.
1 This phase of religious thought has been well described in the same
fifth volume of Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, p. 354 ; see also Deussen,
Geachichte <Ier Philosophic. I, p. 104.
MONOTHEISM AND MONISM. 4!
Monotheism and Monism.
All these tendencies worked together in one direction,
and made some of the Vedic poets see more or less distinctly
that the idea of God, if once clearly conceived, included
the ideas of being one and without an equal. They thus
arrived at the conviction that above the great multitude of
gods there must be one supreme personality > and, after
a time, they declared that there was behind all the gods
that one (Tad Ekam) of which the gods were but various
names.
Rv. I, 164, 46. EkaFi sat viprSA bahudha vadanti, Agnim, Yatnam,
Matarisv&nam ahuft.
The bages call that One in many ways, they call .it Agni, Yama,
Matarisvan.
Rv. X^ 129, a. Axiit avatam svadhaya tat ekam, tasmai ha anyat na
paraA kim fcana asa.
That One breathed breathlessly by itself, other than it there nothing
since has been.
The former thought led by itself to a 'monotheistic reli-
gion, the latter t as .we shall seet to a monistic philosophy.
In trying to trace the onward movement of religious and
philosophical thought in the Veda, we should recognize
once for all the great difficulties with which we have to
contend. Speaking as yet of the hymns only, we have in
the Kig-veda a collection of 1,017 hymns, each on an
average containing about ten verses. But this collection
was made at different times and in different places, syste-
matically in some respects, but in others, more or less at
random. We have no right to suppose that we have even
a hundredth part of the religious and popular poetry that
existed during the Vedic age. We must therefore carefully
guard against such conclusions as that, because we possess
in our Rig-veda-samhita but one -hymn addressed to a cer-
tain deity, therefore that god was considered as less impor-
tant or was less widely worshipped than other gods. This
has been a very common mistake, and I confess that there
is some excuse for it, just as there was for looking upon
Homer as the sole representative of the whole epic poetry
of Greece, and upon his mythology as the mythology of
the whole of Greece. But we must never forget that the
42 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Rig-veda is but a fragment, and represents the whole of
Vedic mythology and religion even lees than Homer repre-
sents the whole of Greek mythology and religion. It is
wonderful enough that such a collection should have
escaped destruction or forgetful ness, when we keep in mind
that the ancient literature of India was purely mnemonic,
writing being perfectly unknown, but the art of mnemonics
being studied all the more as a discipline essential to intel-
lectual life. What has come down to us of Vedic hymns,
by an almost incredible, yet well attested process, is to us
a fragment only, and we must be on our guard not to go
beyond the limits assigned to us by the facts of the case.
Nor can the hymns which have come down to vs have
been composed by one man or by members of one family
or one community only ; they reach »us in the form of ten
collections (Mandalas) composed, we are told, by different
men, and very likely at different periods. Though there is
great similarity, nay even monotony running through
them, there are differences also that cannot fail to strike
the attentive reader. In all such matters, however, we
must be careful not to go beyond the evidence before us,
and abstain as much as possible from attempting to syste-
matise and. generalise what comes to us in an unsystematised,
nay often chaotic form.
Pro// A,pati.
Distinguishing therefore, as much as possible, between
what has been called tentative monotheism, which is reli-
gion, and tentative monism, which is philosophy, we can
aiscover traces of the former in the famous hymn X, 121,
which, years ago, I called the hymn to the Unknown God.
Here the poet asks in every verse to whom, to what Deva,
he should offer his sacrifice, and says towards the end
whether it should be, ydh devdshu £dhi devaA dkaL asit,
* he who alone was goc} above gods/ Many of the ordinary
gods are constantly represented as supreme, with an entire
torgetfninees that one only can be so; but this is very
different from the distinct demand here made by the poet
for a god that should be abovy all other gods. It is much
niore like the Semitic demand for a god above all gods
VISVAKARMAN. TVASHT7?/. 43
(Exod, xviii. n), or for a father of gods and men, as in
Greece (irar^p avbpvv re Oe&v re). Aristotle already re-
marked that, as men have one king, they imagined that
the gods also must be governed by one king1. I believe,
however, that the ground for this lies deeper, and that the
idea of oneness is really involved in the idea of God as
a supreme and unlimited being. But Aristotle might no
doubt have strengthened his argument by .appealing to
India where ever sg many clans and tribes had each their
own king, whether Ragrah or Maharajah, and where it
might seem natural to imagine a number of supreme gods,
each with their own limited supremacy. Still all this
would have satisfied the monistic craving for a time only.
Here too, in the demand for and in the supply of a supreme
deity, we can watch a slow and natural progress. At first,
for instance, when (Rv. VIII, 89) Indra was to be praised
for his marvellous deeds, it was he who had made the sun
to shine. He was called $atakratu, the all-powerful and
all-wise, or Abhibhu, the conqueror. At the end the poet
sums up by saying : Visva-karma vLsva-devaA maMn asi,
* thou art the maker of all things, thou art the great
Visvadeva (all-god)/ The last word is difficult to translate,
but its real purport becomes clear, if we remember what we
saw before with reference to the origin of the Visve Devas.
Visvafcarman.
In such adjectives as $atakratu, and still .more in Visva-
karman, the maker of all things, we see the clear germs
that were to grow into the one supreme deity. As soon
as Visvakarman was used as a substantive, the Brahmans
had what they wanted, they had their All-maker, their god
above all gods, the god whose friendship the other gods
were eager to secure (VIII, 89, 3).
Tvasfe/H.
The maker or creator of all things is the nearest approach
to the onjB and only god of later times. It should not be
forgotten, however, that, there was already another maker.
1 Arist. Politics, i, a, 7 ; Muir, 0. S. T., V, p. 5.
44 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
called TvashJ ri, i. e. T&TOH-', only that he did not rise to the
position of a real creator of all things. He seems to have
been too old, too mythological a character for philosophical
purposes. He remained the workman, the Hephaestos, of
the Vedic gods, well known as the father of SaraTiyu and
Visvarftpa. He had all the requisites for becoming a
supreme deity, in fact, he is so here and there, as when
he is addressed as having formed heaven and earth (X, no,
9), nay, as having begotten everything (visvam bhuvanam
(jac/ana). He is in fact all that a Creator can be required
to be, being supposed to have created even some of the
gods, such as Agni, Indra, and Brahman aspati (Rv. X, 2,
7 ; II, 23, 17). If Agni himself is called Tvashtfri (Rv. II,
1,5), this is merely in consequence of that syncretism which
identified Agni with ever so many gods, but more par-
ticularly with Tvashtfri, the shaper of all things.
When Tvashfrri is called Savitri, this does rfot necessarily
imply his identity with the god Savitri, but the word
should in that case be taken as a predicate, meaning the en-
livener, just as in other places he is praised as the nouri^her
or preserver of all creatures, as the sun (Rv. Ill, 55, 19).
One of the causes why he did not, like Pragrapati or Visva-
karman, become a supreme god and creator was his having
belonged to a more ancient pre- Vedic stratum of gods.
This might also account for Indra's hostility to TvashZri,
considering that he (Indra), as a new god, had himself
supplanted the older gods, such as Dyaus.. We must be
prepared for many such possibilities, though I give them
here as guesses only. It is possible also that the name of
Asura, given to Tvashtfri and to his son Visvarupa, points
in the same direction, and that we should take it, not in
the sense of an evil spirit, but in the sense of an ancient
daimon in which it is applied in other hymns to Varu'wa,
and other ancient Devas. Tvash£r£ is best known as the
father of Saranyft and the grandfather therefore of the
Asvins (day and night), but it is a mistake to suppose that
as father of Yama and Yami he was ever conceived as the
progenitor of the whole human race. Those who so con-
fidently identify Yama and Yaml with Adam and Eve
seem to have entirely forgotten that Yama never had any
SEARCH FOE A SUPREME DL1TY. 45
children of Yaini. In his mythological character, Tvashtri
is sometimes identical with Dyaus (Zeus) *, but he never
becomes, as has sometimes been supposed, a purely abstract
deity ; and in this we see the real difference between Tvashtfri
and Visvakarman. Visvakarman, originally a mere pre-
dicate, has no antecedents, no parents, and no offspring, like
Tvashtfri (Rv. X, 81, 4). The work of Visvakarman is
described in the following words, which have a slight
mythological colouring : ' What was the stand, the support,
what and how was it, from whence the all-seeing Visva-
karman produced by his might the earth and stretched
out the sky ? The only god who on every side has eyes,
mouths, arms and feet, blows (forges) with his two arms
and with wings, while producing heaven and earth2/
How vague and uncertain the personal character of Vis-
vakarman was in Vedic times, we can see from the fact
that the Taittiriya Brahmawa ascribes the very acts here
ascribed to Visvakarman to Brahman 3. At a later time,
Visvakarman, the All-maker, became with the Buddhists,
as Visvakamma, a merely subordinate spirit, who is sent
to act as hairdresser to Buddha* The gods also have their
fates !
Search for a Supreme Deity.
The same human yearning for one supreme deity which
led the Vedic priests to address their hymns to the Visve
Devas or to Visvakarman as the maker of all things,
induced them likewise to give a more personal character to
Pra^apati. This name, meaning lord- of creatures, is used
in the Rig-veda as a predicate of several gods, such as
Soma, Savitrt, and others. His later origin has been in-
ferred from the fact that his name occurs but three times
in the Rig-veda4. These arithmetical statistics should,
however, be used with great caution. First of all my index
1 Contributions, II, p. 560.
a This bl«ving has reference to the forge on which the smith does his
work. Wings wfere used instead of bellows, and we must take care not to
ascribe angels* wings to Tvashfri Or to any god of Vedic times, unless he is
conceived as a bird, and not as a man.
8 Taitt. Br. II, 8, 9, 6 ; Muir, O. S. T., V, p. 355.
• Muir, O.S.T., V, p, 390.
46 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
verborum is by no means infallible, and secondly pur.Sam-
hita of the Rig-vcda is but a segment, probably a very
small segment, of the mass of religious poetry that once
existed. In the case of Pra^apati I had left out in rny
Index one passage, X, 1-21, 10, and though, for very good
reasons, I considered and still consider this verse as a later
addition, this was probably no excuse for omitting it, like
all that is omitted in the Pada-text of the Rig-veda. The
whole hymn must have been, as I thought, the expression
of a yearning after one supreme deity, who had made
heaven and earth, the sea and all :that in them is. But
many scholars take it as intended from the very first verse
for the individualised god, Pra^apati. I doubt this still,
and I give therefore the translation of the hymn as I gave
it in 1860, in my 'History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature'
(p. 568)- It has been translated many times since, but
it will be seen that I have had but little to alter.
Hymn to the Unknown God.
1. In the beginning there arose the germ of golden light, Hiranya-
garbha; he was the one born lord of all that is. He stablished the earth
and this sky— Who is the god to whom we should offer our sacrifice?
2. He who gives life, he who gives strength : whose command all the
bright gods revere ; whose shadow is immortality and mortality (gods
and men) — Who is the god to whom we should offer our sacrifice ?
3. He who through his power became the sole king of this breathing
and slumbering world— he who governs all, man and beasW-Who is the
god to whom we should offer our sacrifice ?
4. He through whose greatness these snowy mountains are, and the
gf-a, they say, with the Rasa, the distant river, he whose two arms these
regions are — Who is the god to whom we should offer our sacrifice ?
5. He through whom the sky is strong, and the earth firm, he through
•whom the heaven was established, nay the highest heaven, he who mea-
sured the light in the air — Who is the god to whom We should offer our
sacrifice?
6. He to whom heaven and earth (or, the two armies) standing firm by
his help, look up, trembling in their minds, he over whom the rising sun
shines forth — Who is the god to whom we should offer our sacrifice ?
7. When the great waters went everywhere, holding the germ and
generating fire, thence he arose who is the sole life of the bright gods —
Who is the god to whom we should offer our sacrifice ?
8. He who by his might looked even over the waters, which gave
strength and produced the sacrifice, he who alone is god above all gods —
Who is the god to whom we should offer our sacrifice ?
9. May he not destroy i\s, he, the creator of the earth, or he, the
righteous, who created the heaven, he who also created the bright and
mighty waters— Who is the god to whom we should offer our sacrifice ?
HYMN TO TEE UNKNOWN GOD. 47
Then follows the verse which I treated as a later addition,
because it seemed to me that, if Pra(/apatrhad been known
by the poet as the god who did all this, he would not have
asked, at the end of every verse, who the god was to whom
sacrifice should be offered. However, poets have their own
ways. But- the strongest argument against the final verse,
which my critics have evidently overlooked, is the fact
that this verse has not been divided by the Padakara.
I still hold, therefore, that it was a later addition, that it is
lame and weak, and spoils the character of the hymn. It
runs as follows : —
10. 'O Pra</ilpati? no other but thou has held together all these things ;
whatevei* we desire in sacrificing to thee, may that be ours, may we be
the lords of wealth/
With this conception of Pra#apati as the lord of all
created things and as the supreme deity, the monotheistic
yearning was satisfied, even though the existence of other
gods was not denied. Arid what is curious is that we see
the same attempt * repeated again and again. Like Visva-
karman and Pragrapati we find such names as Purusha,
man ; HiraTiyagarbha, golden germ ; Pra/rca, breath, spirit ;
Skambha, support (X, 81, 7); Dhatri, maker; Vidhatri,
arranger; Namadha, name-giver of the gods, oz/o/xaroflcV?;?
and others, all names for the Eka Deva, the one god,
though not, like Pragapati, developed into full-grown divine
personalities. These names have had different fates in
later times. SomeAmeet us again during the Brahma?ia
period and in the Atharvar^a hymns, or rise to the surface
in' the more modern pantheon of India ; others have disap-
peared altogether after a short existence, or have resumed
their purely predicative character. But the deep groove
which they made in the Indian mind has remained, and to
the present day the religious wants of the great mass of
the people in India seem satisfied through the idea of the
one supreme god, exalted above all other gods, whatever
names mey have been given to him. Even the gods: of
modern times such as $iva and Vishnu, nay goddesses even,
such as Kali, Parvati, Durga, are but new names for what
1 M. M., Theosophy, pp. 244 seq.
48 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
was originally embodied in the lord of created things
(Pra</apati) and the maker of all things (Visvakarman).
In spite of their mythological disguises, these modern gods
have always retained in the eyes of the more enlightened
of their worshippers traces of the character of omnipotence
that was assigned even in Vedic times to the one supreme
god, the' god above all gods.
Brahman, Atman, Tad Ekam.
We have now to take another step in advance. By the
side of the stream of thought which we have hitherto
followed, we see in India another powerful movement
which postulated from the first more than a god above, yet
among, other gods. .In the eyes of more thoughtful men
every one of the gods, called by a personal and proper
name, was limited ipso facto, and therefore not fit to fill
the place which was to be filled by an unlimited and abso-
lute power, as the primary cause of all created things. No
name that expressed ideas connected with the male or
female sex, not even Pra^apati or Visvakarman, was con-
sidered as fit for such a being, and thus we see that as
early as the Vedic hymns, it was spoken of as Tad Ekam,
that One, as neither male nor female, that is, as neuter.
We come across it in the hymn of Dirghatamas (1, 164, 6'1),
where, after asking who he was that established .these six
spaces of, the world, the poet asks, ' Was it perhaps the One
(neuter), in the shape of the Unborn (rnasc.) ? ' This should
be read in connection with the famous forty-sixth verse:- —
'They call (it) Indra, Mitra and Varwia, Agni: then
(oomes) the heavenly bird Garutman; that which is the
One, the poets call in many ways, they call it Agni, Yama,
Matarisvan.'
Here we see the clear distinction between the One that
is named and the names, that is, the various gods, and
again between the One without form or the unborn, that
1 This hymn, the author of which is called Dirghatnmas, i.e. Long
Darkness, is indeed full of obscure passages. It has been explained by
Hau« (Vedische Riithselfragen und Riithselspriiche, 1875) and more suc-
cessfully by Deussen, in his Allgemeine Geschichte dei* Philosophic,
p. 108. but it still cqntains much that has to be cleared up.
NASADITA HYMN. 49
is, the inmanifested, and those who established the whole
world. This One, or the Unborn, is mentioned also in X,
82, 6, where we read - The One is placed in the nave, of the
unborn where all beings rested/ Again in a hymn to the
Visve Devas, III, 54, 8, the poet, when speaking of heaven
and earth, says : —
'They keep apart all created things, and tremble not,
though bearing the great gods ; the One rules over all that
is unrnoving and that moves, that walks or flies, being
differently born/
The same postulated Being is most fuljy described in
hymn X, 129, i, of which I likewise gave a translation in
my ' History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature ' (1859), P- 5^9*
It has been frequently translated siiice, but the meaning
has on the whole remained much the same.
Sfasadiya Hymn.
1. There was then neither what is nor what is not, there was no sky,
nor the heaven which is beyond. What covered? Where was it, and in
whose shelter? Was the water the deep abyss (in which it lay) ?
2. There \yas no death, hence was there nothing immortal. There was
no light (distinction) between night and day. That One breathed by
itself without breath, other than it there has been nothing.
3> Darkness there was, in the beginning all this was a sea without
light ; the germ that lay covered by the husk, that One was born by the
power of heat (Tapas).
4. Love overcame it in the beginning, which was the seed springing
from mind; poets having search d in their heart found by wisdom the
bond of what is in what is not.
5. Their ray which was stretched across, was it below or was it above?
There were seed-bearers, there were powers, self-power -below, and will
above.
6. Who then knows, who has declared it hew, from whence was born
this creation ? The gods came later than this creation, who then knows
whence it arose?
7. He from whom this creation arose, whether he made it or did not
make it, the Highest Seer in the highest heaven, he forsooth knows ; or does
even he not know ?
There are several passages in this hymn which, in spite
of much labour spent on them by eminent scholars, remain
as obscure now as they were to me in 1859. The poet
himself is evidently not quite clear in his own mind, and
he is constantly oscillating between a personal and imper-
sonal or rather superpersonal cause from whence the uni-
E
50 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
verse emanated. But the step from a sexual to a sexless
d, from a mythological TiyxSro? to a metaphysical TT/XOTW,
evidently been made at that early time, and with it
the decisive step from mythology to philosophy had been
taken. It is strange to meet with this bold guess in a
collection of hymns the greater part of which consists of
what must seem to us childish petitions addressed to the
numerous Devas or gods of nature. Even the question
whibh in Europe was asked at a much later date, where
the Creator could have found a TTOV orS for creating the
world out of matter or out of nothing, had evidently
passed through the minds of the Vedic seers when they
asked, Rv. X, 81, 2 and 4: 'What was the stand, what was
the support, what and how was it, from whence the all-
seeing Visvakarman produced by his might the earth and
stretched out the sky?' These startling outbursts of
philosophic thought seem indeed to require the admission
of a long continued effort of meditation and speculation
before .so complete a rupture with the old conception of
physical gods* could have .become possible. We must not,
however, measure every nation with the same measure. It
is not necessary that the historical progress of thought,
whether religiouB or philosophical, should have been exactly
the same in every country, nor must we forget that there
always have been privileged individuals whose mind was
untrammelled by the thoughts of the great mass of the
people, and who saw and proclaimed, as if inspired by
a power not themselves, truths far beyond- the reach of
their fellow men. It must have required considerable bold-
ness, when surrounded by millions who never got tired of
celebrating the mighty deeds achieved by such Devas as
Agni, Indra, Soma, Savitri, or VaruTia, to declare that
these gods were nothing but names of a higher power
which was at first without any name at all, called simply
Tad Ekam, that One, and afterwards addressed by such
dark names as Brahman and Atman. The poets who utter
these higher truths seem fully conscious of their own
weakness in grasping them. Thus, in I, 167, 5 and 6, thQ
poet says :—
1 As a fool, ignorant in my own mind. I ask for the hidden places of the
NASADIYA BYMN. 5 1
gods ; the sages, in order to weave, stretched the seven strings over the
newborn calf1.'
' Not having discovered I ask the sages who may have Discovered, not
knowing, in order to know : he who supported the six skies in the form
of the unborn — was he perchance that One ? *
And .again in ver. 4 of the same hymn : — •
'Who has seen the firstborn, when he who had no bones (no form)
bears him that has bones (form) ? Where is the breath of the earth, the
blood, the self? Who went to one who knows, to ask this ?'
In all this it is quite clear that the poets themselves
who proclaimed the great truth of the One, as the sub-
stance of all the gods, did not claim any inspiration ab
extra, but strove to rise by their own exertions out of the
clouds of their foolishness towards the perception of a
higher truth. The wise, as they said, had perceived in
their heart what was the bond between what is and what
is not, between the visible and the invisible, between the
phenomenal and the real, and hence also between the indi-
vidual gods worshipped by the multitude, and that One
Being which was free from the character of a mere Deva,
entirely free from mythology, from parentage and sex,
and, if endowed with personality at all, then so far only
as personality was necessary for will. This was very
different from the vulgar personality ascribed by the
Greeks to their Zeus or Aphrodite, nay even by many
Jews and Christians to their Jehovah or God. All this
represented an enormous .progress, and it is certainly
difficult to imagine how it could have been achieved at
that early period and, as it were, in the midst of prayers
and sacrifices addressed to a crowd of such decidedly
personal and mythological Devas as Indr& and Agni and
all the rest. Still it was achieved; and whatever is the
age when the collection of our Rig-veda-samluta was
finished, it was before that age that the conviction had
been formed that there is but One, One Being, neither
male nor female, a Being raised high above all the con-
ditions and limitations of personality and of human nature,
1 This calf seems meant for the year, and in the seven strings we might
see a distant recollection of a year of seven seasons; see Galen, v. 347.
Pragapati is often identified with the year.
E 2
52 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
and nevertheless the Being that was really mean!, by all
such names as Indra, Agni, Mataris^an, nay even by the
name of Pra^apati, lord of creatures. In fact the Vedic
poets had arrived at a conception of the Godhead which
was reached once more by some of the Christian philo-
sophers of Alexandria, but which even at present is beyond
the reach of many who call themselves Christians.
Before that highest point of religious speculation was
reached, or, it may be, even at the same time, for chronology
is very difficult to apply to the spontaneous intuitions of
philosophical truths, many efforts had been made Ain the
same direction. Such names as Brahman and Atman,
which afterwards became so important as the tfvo main
supports of Vedanta-philosophy, or Purusha, the name of
the transcendent soul as used in the Samkhya system,
do not spring into life without a long previous incubation.
Brahman, its various
If then we find Brahman used as another name of whaf
before was called Tad Ekam, That One, if later on we meet
with such questions as —
' Was Brahman the first cause ? Whence are we born ?
By what do we live? Whither are we hastening? By
whom constrained do we obtain our lot in life whether
of happiness or of misery, O ye knowers of Brahman?
Is time, is the nature of things, is necessity, is accident,
are the elements, or is Purusha to be considered the
source ? '
We naturally ask, first of all, whence came these names ?
What did Brdhrnan mean so as to become fit to signify
Ttf JzTecs ov't It is curious to observe how lightly chis
question has been answered1. Br&hman, it was said by
£>r. Haug, means prayer, and was derived from the root
Barh or Brih. to swell or to grow, so that originally it
would have meant what swells or grows. He then assigned
to Br&hrnan the more abstract meaning of growth and
welfare, and what causes growth and welfare, namely
sacred songs. Lastly, he assigned to Br&hman the meaning
1 M. M., Theosopliy, p. 240.
BRAHMAN, ITS VARIOUS MEANINGS. 53
of force as manifested in mature, and that of universal
force as the Supreme Peing. I confess I can see no con-
tinuity in this string o£ thought. Other scholars, however,
have mostly repeated the same view. Dr. Muir starts from
Brahman in the sense of prayei', while with the ordinary
change of accent Brahman means he who prays.
Here the first question seems to be how Brahman could
have corne to mean prayer. Prof. Roth maintained that
Brahman expressed the force of will directed to the gods ;
and he gave as the first meaning of Brahman, 'Die cds
Drang und F Lille des Gemuths au/tretende ^tmd den
G otter n zustrebende Andacht,' words difficult to render
into intelligible English. The second meaning, according
to him, is a sacred or magic formula ; then sacred and
divine words, opposed to ordinary language ; sacred wisdom,
holy life; lastly, the absolute or impersonal god. These
are mighty strides of thought, but how are they to be
derived one from the other'?
Prof. Deusseri (p. TO) sees in Brahman 'prayer/ the
lifting up of the will above one's own individuality of
which we become conscious in religious meditation. I must
confess that here too there seem to be several missing links
in the chain of meanings. Though the idea of prayer as
swelling or exalted thought may be true with us, there is
little, if any, trace of such thoughts in the Veda. Most
of the prayers there are very matter-of-fact petitions, and
all that has been said of the swelling of the heart, the
elevation of the mind, the fervid impulse of the will, as
expressed by the word Brahman, soems to me decidedly
modern, and without any analogies in the Veda itself.
When it is said that the hymns make the gods grow
(Vr*dh), this is little more than what we mean by saying
that they magnify the gods (Deussen, 1. c., p. 245). Even
it: a more profound intention were supposed to be necessary
for the word Brahman in the sense of prayer, there would
be nothing to prevent its having originally grown out
of Brahman in the sense of word. Of course we cannot
expect perfect certainty in a matter like this, when we
are trying to discover the ahnost imperceptible transitions
by which a root which expresses the idea of growing forth
54 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
(Vriddhau), growing strong, bursting forth, increasing,
came to supply a name for prayer as well as for deity.
This evolution of thought must have taken place long
before the Vedic period, long before the Aryan Separation,
long before the final constitution of the Aryan language
of India. We can but guess therefore, and we should
never forget this in trying to interpret the faint traces
which the earliest steps of the human mind have left on
the half-petrified sands of our language. That Brahman
means prayer is certain, and that the root Brih meant
to grow, ^0 break forth, is equally certain, and admitted
by1 all. What is uncertain are the intermediate links
connecting the two.
I suppose, and I can say no more, that Vrih or Brih,
which I take to be a parallel form of VrMh, to grow, meant
to grow, to come forth, to spread. Hence Brihat means
simply great (like great from growing), broad, strong,
BarhishtfAa, strongest. We should note, however, though
we cannot attribute much importance to the fact, that
Brirahati and Brimhayati also were quoted by Indian
grammarians in the sense of speaking and shining. Here
we can see that speaking could originally have had the
meaning of uttering, and that ' word ' has been conceived
as that which breaks forth, or is uttered, an utterance (Aus-
druck), as we say.
The next step to consider is the name Bfihaspati. We
must start from the fact that Brihaspati is synonymous
with Va/cas-pati, lord of speech. Unless Brih had once
meant speech, it would have been impossible to form such
a name as T3r£has-pati, as little as Brahman as-pati could
have been possible without Br&hman \
From this point once gained I make the next step and
suppose that Br&h-man was formed to express what was
uttered, what broke forth, or shone forth, that is, the word
or speech. If we have arrived at this, we can easily under-
stand how the general concept of word was specialised in
the sense both of sacred utterance or formula and of prayer;
without any idea of swelling meditation or lifting up of
1 See A'Mnd. Up. I, a, n, vag ghi brt'bati, tasyu csha patiA , and VII,
tif 2, yo va/cam brahma *ity upa*ate. Ofc Briii. I, 3, 20.
AND BRAHMAN, WORD. 55
hearts, so alien to Vedic poets, such as they are known to
us. But if I am right in seeing in Brahman the original
meaning of what breaks forth, of a force that manifests
itself in audible speech, it will become easy to understand
how Brahman couid also, from the very beginning though
in a different direction, have been used as a riame of that
universal force which manifests itself in the creation of
a visible universe. We need not suppose that it had to
ascend a scale first from holy word, holy wisdom to the
source of that wisdom, the absolute god.
Brtli and Brahman, Word.
We may suppose therefore— I say no more — that Brah-
man meant force or even germ, so far as it bursts forth,
whether in speech or in nature *. But now comes a much
more perplexing question. It can hardly be doubted that
Vrih or Brih is a parallel form of Vridh ; and it is a well-
known fact that both the Latin verbum and the German
Wort can be regularly derived from the same root, cor-
responding to a possible Sanskrit Vr/h-a or Vr?'dh-a. In
that case Brahman also may be taken as a direct derivation
in the sense of the uttered word, and brahman as the
speaker, the utterer. So far we are still on safe ground,
and in the present state of our knowledge I should not
venture to go much beyond. But Colebrooke and other
Vedic scholars have often pointed out the fact that in the
Veda already we find a goddess Va&, speech, which we met
in Va/cas-pati and Srfhas-pitr*, the lord of speech. This
Va/c, as Colebrooke pointed out as early as 1805, was 'the
active power of Brahma, proceeding from him3/ After
reading Colebrooke's remarks on it, few Sanskrit scholars
could help being reminded of. the Logos or the Word that
was in the beginning, that was with God, and by whom
all things were made. The important question, however,
1 Divyud&'-a Datta quotes a passage from the Yognvasisht&a : l Brahma-
vrfwhaiva hi j/agiigr, </agaA; fca brahinavnwlmnam ' (Vedantism, p. 28).
3 In the Rig-veda we have only vaVca/t pate, X, 1 66, 3, as two words ;
and again patim vafcafe, IX,. a6, 4. Br&hmanas pati/i occurs frequently in
Rig-veda, as It, 23, i, gfyegh^iara^am brdhmanam brahmanas pate, &c.
3 Miscellaneous Essays, I, p. 98.
56 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
which, even after Colebrooke's remarks, remained still
undecided, was whether this idea o* the creative Word
was borrowed by the Greeks from India, or by the Indians
from Greece, or whether it was an idea that sprang up
independently in both countries. This is a question the
answer of which must lead to the most far-reaching con-
sequences. Professor Weber in his * Indische Studien/ IX,
473, published an article with the object of showing that
* the Logos-idea had no antecedents in Greece to account
for it/ This was certainly a startling assertion, but in the
face of wfell-known facts he added : * Without wishing to
give a decision on this question, the surmise is obvious,
considering the close relations at that time existing between
Alexandria and India, that the growth of this Neoplatonic
idea was influenced by the like views of the philosophical
systems of India/ He says again, ' that it may have been
simply on account of the invigorating influence which the
gods were believed to derive from the hymns, that the
goddess of Speech was conceived as furnishing to Pra^apati
the strength of creation, though at last, particularly in
the shape of Om, she obtained the highest position, being
identified with the absolute Brahman/
I hope I have thus given a correct account of Professor
Weber's somewhat vague yet startling assertion, that the
Alexandrian Logos idea had no antecedents in Greek philo-
sophy, but was influenced by the Vedic Va&. There are,
no doubt, similarities, but there are dissimilarities also
which ought not to be ignored. To say nothing else, VaJk
is a feminine, Logos a masculine, and that involves more
than a difference of grammatical gender.
I have tried to show in my * Lectures on Theosophy/
that the facts of the case lead us' to a very different, nay
to the very opposite, opinion. If I did not enter on a dis-
cussion of the arguments which were intended to prove
the absence of antecedents of the Alexandrian Logos idea
in Greek philosophy, it was because I thought it better to
state the facts as they really are, without entering on any
useless controversy, leaving classical and Sanskrit scholars
to form their own conclusions. While Professor Weber
had asserted that the Logos appears in Alexandria without
Bi?/El AND BRAHMAN, WORD. 57
any preparatory steps, I did my best to point out these
very steps leading up to the Logos, which are very well
known to every student of the early history of Greek
philosophy l. If I have succeeded in this, the presumption
in favour of any Indian influence having been exercised on
the philosophers of Alexandria, would tall to the ground
of itself, and the claims' of India and Greece would be
equal so far as the original idea of the Word, as a potentia
of the absolute Being, was concerned. * Real Indian philo-
sophy/ I had said before, * even in that embryonic f orm in
which we find it in the Upanishads, stands completely by
itself. We cannot claim for it any historical relationship
with th# earliest Greek philosophy. The two are as inde-
pendent of each other as the Greek Charis, when she has
become the wife of Hephaestos, is of the Haritas, the red
horses of the Vedic Dawn ' (p. 79).
Then the question arose, was there at least a distant
relationship, such as exists between Charis and the Haritas,
between Zeus and Dyaus, between Va& and the Logos
also ? As there were no linguistic indications whatever in
support of such a view, I arrived in the end at the conclu-
sion, that striking as are the coincidences between the Yedic
Va/c and the Greek Logos, we must here also admit that
what was possible in India was possible in Greece likewise,
and that we have no evidence to support us in any further
conclusions. In all this I thought that facts would speak
far better than words. It is quite true that Professor
Weber was careful to add the clause ' that he did not intend
to give any opinion on this question/ but after such a con-
fession it is hardly becoming to hint that those who have
given an opinion on this question, had derived their infor-
mation from him. It is easy to state the pros and cons,
the.Pftrvapakshaa,nd the Uttarapaksha, but both are meant
in the end to lead on to the Siddhanta, the conclusion.
Even stronger coincidences between Va& and the Sophia
of the Old Testament2 might have been adduced, for as
we read of Va& as the companion of Prar/apati3, Wisdom,
1 Theosophy, p. 384, The Historical Antecedents of the Logos.
2 M. M., Theosophy, p. 381.
8 Kanaka 12, 5 (37, i).
5 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
in Prov. viii. 30, is made to say, 'I was by him, as one
brought up with him ; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing
always before him/
While in the Kanaka we read of Va/c being impregnated
by Pra^fapati, we read in Prov. viii. 22, 'The Eternal pos-
sessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works
of old/
But with all this I cannot admit that there is any evi-
dence of borrowing or of any kind of interaction between
Indian and Greek philosophy, and I should have thought,
that after the historical antecedents of the Logos and the
Logoi in Greece had been clearly laid open, the idea of the
Greeks having borrowed their Logos from Vedic Va& or
from the O. T. Sophia, would not have been revived. The
historical consequences of such an admission would carry
us very far indeed, and it would require a far stronger
lever to lift and to remove the weight of evidence on the
other side than the arguments hitherto brought forward.
If the Greeks had really borrowed their idea of the Logos
from India, why should they not have adopted any of the
consequences that followed from it ?
East and West.
This requires some fuller consideration. Every indica-
tion of a possible intellectual intercourse between Greeks
and Hindus in ancient as well as in more modern times,
has been carefully noted and strongly urged of late; but
I feel bound to say that, particularly for ancient times,
nothing beyond mere possibilities of an exchange of reli-
gious or philosophical ideas between Greece and India has
as yet been established. It seems not to have been per-
ceived that an exchange of philosophical thought is very
different from an adoption of useful arts, such as alphabetic
writing, astronomical observations, coined money, or articles
of trade whether jewels, wood, or clothing materials. It is
only a philosopher that can teach or influence a philosopher,
and even in the cases of two such men meeting, the diffi-
culties of an interchange of thought, without a perfect
knowledge of the languages, arc far greater than we
imagine. We have an instance of a foreign philosopher
EAST AND WEST. 59
becoming a proficient in the philosophical language of India
in the case of Hiouen-thsang. Has he left any trace of
Chinese thought, whether derived from Confucius or Lao-
tze, in India? Modern missionaries, if unsuccessful in
conversions, may, no doubt, have left some imprint of
Christianity and European philosophy on the native mind,
but the position of the Christian missionary in India,
accredited by membership in the ruling race, is very differ-
ent from what the position of a few Buddhist monks could
possibly have been in ancient times, even if they had
reached Alexandria, and learnt to speak and converse on
certain subjects in Greek or Egyptian. A courier may be
very conversant with French or Italian, but let him try«to
discuss metaphysical questions, or even to translate a book
of Vico's into English, and it will be perceived what differ-
ence there is between an interpreter and a philosopher
capable of discussing religious and metaphysical problems.
That there was a time when the ancestors of the Aryan
speakers had the same language a,nd held many of their
mythological and religious names and ideas in common, is'
no longer doubted, though, even here, we must be satisfied
with names, and could not expect common mythological
speculations. Later contact between. Indians and Greeks,
whether in Persia, Asia Minor, or Greece, assumed no
importance till we come to the invasion of Asia Minor,
Persia, and India by Alexander the Great. But long
before that time both Greeks and Hindus had invented
many things, such as kings, priests, numbers, and seasons,
marriages and funerals, without our having to imagine that
there was at that time any exchange of ideas between the
two countries on such points. If then we meet in India as
well as in Greece with similar philosophic ideas, as, for
instance, with a name meaning atom and with the atomic
theory, should we suggest at once that Epicurus must have
borrowed his atoms from Kanada, or Kamula his A??,us
from Epicurus? It is interesting, no doubt, to point out
coincidences between Kapila and Zenon, Pythagoras, Plato
and Aristotle, but it is even more interesting to point out
the shades of difference in cases where they seem most to
agree. If the Vedanta could elaborate an ideal Monism,
60 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
why not the Eleatics as well ? And yet where is tfeere a
trace of such a philosophical theory as ,the absolute identity
of Atman (the Self), and Brahman (the absolute being), to
be found in Greek philosophy ? Who would see more than
a very natural coincidence between the Sanskrit triad of
Dharma, virtue, Artha, wealth, Kama, love, and the Platonic
ra fcaAa, what is good, ra w^eAt/uta, what is useful, and ra
rjbea what is pleasant 1 How widely the triad of thought,
word, and deed is spread lias been shown very clearly by
my old friend Professor Cowell and others, but no one
would venture to accuse either Greeks or Indians of borrow-
ing or of theft on such evidence.
The real character of most of these coincidences between
Greek and Hindu philosophy, is best exhibited by the often
attempted identification of the names, of Pythagoras, and
Buddha-guru. At first sight it is certainly startling, but if
traced back to its origin, it evaporates completely. First
of all, Buddha-guru does not occur, least of all as a name
of the teacher Buddha, and whether as a common Aryan
name or as borrowed, Pytha could never be the same as
Buddha, or Goras as Guru. The belief in transmigration
among the Buddhists, besides being borrowed from the
Veda, is very different from that of Pythagoras and other
philosophers, both civilised and uncivilised, while ascetic
practices were certainly not confined to either India or
Greece.
It is quite true that after Alexander's conquests, and
after the establishment of a Bactrian kingdom, in the
North of India, there was a more real intercourse even
between philosophers of Greek and Indian origin, and
many of the facts bearing on this subject have been very
carefully put together by Count Goblet d'Alviella in his Ce
que I'Tfuie doit a la Greee, 1897. But even he brings for-
ward coincidences, which require more convincing proofs.
With regard to Indian coinage, it should be observed
that the three gods mention (id by Pata/tyali as used for
commerce, i.e. on coins, are the very gods found on the
earliest Mauryun coins, Siva, Skanda, and Viwikha, cf. Pan,.
V5 3> 99 ; provided that Visakha can refer to K&ina shoot-
ing his arrows ?
EAST AND WEST. 6 1
It cannot be doubted that the art of coining money was
introduced into India by the Greeks, and it the images of
Indian gods and even of Baddha on ancient coins, may be
supposed to have favoured idolatry in India, that too may
be admitted. Indian gods, however, were anthropomorphic,
had legs and arms, heads, noses and eyes, as early as the
Veda, and the absence of workable stone in many parts of
India would naturally have been unfavourable to a develop-
ment of sculptured idols. The Hindus had a god of love in
the Veda, but he was very different from the Kama, imaged
on more modern coins as an archer sitting on the back of
a parrot.
We are now in possession of specimens of much earlier
Greek workmanship in India, than this Kama on the back
of a parrot, nor is there any reason to doubt that the idea
of temples or monasteries or monuments, built and carved
in stone, carne from Greece, while some of the Indian archi-
tecture, even when in stone, shows as clear surviving traces
of a native wood-architecture as, for instance, the Lycian
tombs.
The later influence which Christianity is supposed to
have exercised in originating or in powerfully influencing
the sectarian worship of Krtshfta does riot concern us here,
for, if it should be admitted at all, it would have to be
referred to a much later period than that which gave rise
to the six systems of philosophy. Ever since the beginning
of Sanskrit studies, nay even before, these startling simi-
larities between Krislma and Christos have been pointed
out again and again. But iteration yields no strength to
argument, and we are as far as ever from being able to
point to any historical channel through which the legends
of Christ or Krishna could have travelled. No one can
deny the similarities, such as they are, but no one, I believe,
can account for them. Some of those who have been most
anxious to gather coincidences between the Bhagavad-gita
and the New Testament, have been rightly warned by
native scholars themselves, that they sliould learn to trans-
late both Sanskrit and Greek before they venture to com-
pare. It should riot be forgotten that as the'Bhagavad-gita
bears the title of Upanishad, it may belong to the end of
62 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
the Upanishad-period, and may, as the late Professor Telang
maintained, be older even than the New Testament. If
Damascius tells us that there were Brahmans living at
Alexandria *, we must riot forget that this refers to the end
of the fifth century A.D., and does not help us much even
as indicating the way by which the idea of the Creative
Word could have reached Clement of Alexandria or Origen.
That Clement of Alexandria knew the name of Butta is
well known, he even knew that he had been taken for
a god. Nor should it be forgotten, that Pantaenus who,
according to Eusebius, had preached the Gospel in India,
was one of the teachers of Clement. But all this is far
from proving that Clement or Origen was able to study
the Vedanta-Sfttras or the Buddhist Abhidharmas, or that
their opinions were influenced by a few Indian travellers
staying at Alexandria who cared for none of these things.
Some of the coincidences between Buddhism and Christi-
anity are certainly startling, particularly by their number,
but in several cases they exist on the surface only and are
not calculated to carry conviction on one side or the other.
I have treated of them on several occasions, for .the last
time in my paper on c Coincidences/ but the same coinci-
dences, which have been proved to be anything but real
coincidences, are repeated again and again. The story cf
Buddha sitting under an Indian fig-tree (ficus rdigiosa) has
nothing whatever in common with Nathaniel sitting under
a Palestinian fig-tree, and the parable *of the Prodigal Son
in the Buddhist scriptures is surely very different in spirit
from that in the New Testament. There remain quite
sufficient similarities to startle and perplex us, without our
dragging in what has no power of proving anything. No
critical historian would listen for one moment to such
arguments as have been used to establish a real exchange
of thought between India and Europe in ancient' times.
On this point we owe a great deal to students of ethnology,
who have pointed out coincidences quite as startling be-
tween the religious and philosophical folklore of uncivi-
lised and civilised races, without venturing to suggest any
» See Goblet d'Alviella, 1. c., p. 167.
EAST AND WEST. 63
borrowing or any historical community of origin. The
iTinvat1 bridge, for instance, which seems so peculiar to
the Persians, had its antecedents as far back as the Veda,
and is matched by a similar bridge among the North
American Indians2. I say, a similar bridge, for it differs
also, as I pointed out, very characteristically from the
Persian bridge. Again, it is -well known that the creation
of the world by the Word has been discovered among so
low a race as the Klainaths3, but no one has ventured to
say that the two accounts had a common origin or were
borrowed one from the other. This should serve as a use-
ful warning to those who are so fond of suggesting channels
through which Indian thought might have influenced
Palestine or Greece, and vice versa.
No doubt, such channels were there ; neither mountains
nor seas would have formed impassable barriers. Besides,
Buddhism, as early as the third century B.C., was certainly
a missionary religion quite as much as Christianity was
at a later time. Alexandria was known by name, as
Alasando, to the author of the Mahava?nsa4. On the
other hand, the name of King Gondaphoros, who is
mentioned in the legend of St. Thomas' travels to India,
has been authenticated on Indo-Parthian coins as Gondio-
phares, likewise the name of his nephew Abdayases, and
po&sibly, according to M. S. L^vi, that of Vasu Deva as
Misdeos. All this is true, and shows that the way between
Alexandria and Benares was wide open in the first century
A.D. Nor should* it have been forgotten that in the
Dialogues between Milinda and Nagasena we have a well-
authenticated case of a Greek king (Menandros), and of
a Buddhist philosopher, discussing together some of the
highest problems of philosophy and religion. All this is
true, and yet we are as far as ever from having discovered
a Greek or Indian go-between in flagrante delicto. We
have before us ever so many possibilities, nay even proba-
bilities, but we could not expect any bond fide historian
to accept any one of them as a proof of a real influence
1 Contributions to the Science of Mythology.
2 Theosophy, p. 168. 3 Theosophy, p. 383.
* Le Comte d'Alviella, 1. c., p. 177.
64 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
having been exercised by Greece on India or by India
on Greece, at a time when Greek philosophy and religion
might still have been amenable to Eastern guides, or Indian
schools of thought might have gratefully received fresh
impulses from the West. Though the literature of India
has no trustworthy chronology, still, unless the whole
structure of the literary development of India is once
more to be revolutionised, we can hardly imagine that
the occurrence of such names as Bodcla and Zarades
(Zoroaster) among the followers of Mani, or that of
Terebinthos the pupil of Scythiaiios 1, the very founder
of the Maniehaean sect in Babylon, would hqlp us to
discover the secret springs of the wisdom of Kapila or
Buddha $akya Muni. They may point out whence these
heresiarchs derived their wisdom, but they leave the
question which concerns us here totally untouched. Gorres,
in spite of all his mysticism, was right w^hen he looked
for a similarity in technical terms in order to establish
an Indian influence on Greek or a Greek influence on
Indian philosophy.- His principle was right, though he
applied it wrongly. It is the same as in Comparative
Mythology. There may be ever so many similarities
between two mythologies, such as changes of men and
women into animals or plants, worship of trees and
ancestors, belief in spirits and visions in sleep or dreams,
but one such equation as Dyaus = Zeus, is more convincing
than all of them taken together. If people ask why, they
might as well ask why the discovery of one coin with the
name of Augustus on it is a more convincing proof of
Roman influence in India than the discovery of ever so
many pieces of uncoined gold.
To return to the origin of the word Brahman. Tempting2
1 It has been suggested that Soytliianos may have been an adaptation
of Sakya tbe Scythian, a name of Buddha, and Terebinthos mny contain
traces of Them (elder). All this is possible, but no more.
2 There is a curious passage in Bhartr/hari's Brahiiuikimd which seems
to identify Speech and Brahman. Sec Sarvadursaria-sangraha, Bibl. Ind ,
p. 140:—
Anadinidhanam brahma sahdntaltvam yad ukshnram,
Vivartate*rthabhavena prakriyA f/ngato yntha.
EAST AND WEST. 65
as the distant relationship between Brdhman and Br£h, in
the sense of speech, with verbwm and Word may be, we
could not admit it without admitting at the same time
a community of thought; and of deep philosophical thought,
at a period previous to the Aryan Separation ; and we
certainly have no evidence sufficiently strong to support
so bold a hypothesis. What we may carry away from
a consideration of the facts hitherto examined is that in
India itself Brahman, as a name of the TTP&TGV K.IVOVV, need
not have passed through a stage when Brahman meant
prayer only, and that Br&hman, prayer, could not have
assumed the meaning of the object of prayers, that is,
the Universal Spirit, who never required any prayers
at all.
In order to show what direction the thoughts connected
with Va& took in the Veda, I shall first of all subjoin
here a few passages from the hymns, the Bnihma?ias and
Upanishads : —
V&&, speech, speaking in her own name, is introduced
in hymn X, 125, also in Atharva-veda IV, 30, as saying: —
' i. I wander with the Vasus and the Rudras, I wander
with the Adityas and the Visve Devas, I support Mitra
and Varuwa both, I support Agni and the two Asvins ;
2. I support the swelling (?) Soma, I support Tvasbtfr^
and Pftshan and Bhaga. I bestow wealth on the zealous
offerer, on the sacrilicer who presses Soma.
3. I am the queen, the gatherer of riches, the knowing,
first of those who merit worship ; the gods have thus
established me in many places, staying with many, entering
into many.
4. By me it is that he who sees, he who breathes, he
'who hears what is spoken, eats food; without knowing
it, they rest on me* Hear, one and all ! I tell thee what
I believe. (?)
Brahman without beginning or end, which is the eternal essence
of speech,
Is changed into the form of things, like the evolution of the world.
Equally strong is the statement of Madhava himself, Spho&khyo nirava-
yavo nityafc sabdo brahmaiveti, 'The eternal word which is called S photo
and does not consist of parts, is indeed Brahman.'
5 V
66 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
5. I, even I myself, say this, what is good for gods,
and also for men; whomsoever I love, him I make
formidable, him I make a Brahman, him a Rishi, him
a sage.
6. I bend the bow for Rudra (the storm-god) that his
arrow may strike the hater of Brahman ; I make war for
the people, I have entered both heaven and earth.
7. I bring forth the (my?) father (Dyaus) on the summit
of this world, my origin is in the waters, in the sea ; from
thence I spread over all beings, and touch yonder heaven
with my height.
8. I indeed spread forth like the wind, to lay hold on all
things, beyond the sky, beyond the earth; such have
I become through my greatness/
I ask, is there any trace in these utterances of the
thoughts that led in the end to the conception of the Greek
Logos? There is another hymn (X, 71) which is very
obscure and has for the first time been rendered more
intelligible by Professor Deussen (A. G. P., p. 148), where
we meet with some important remarks showing that
language formed an object of thought even at that early
tinie. But here also there is nothing, as yet, approaching
to the conception of the Word as a creative power. We
meet' with such observations as that words were made
in the beginning in order to reveal what before had been
hidden.' This is, no doubt, an important thought, showing
that those who uttered it had not yet ceased, like our-
selves, to wonder at the existence of such a thing as
l&nguage. The struggle for life that is going on among
words is alluded to by saying that the wise made speech
by mind (Manas), silting as by a sieve the coarsely ground
flour. The power of speech is greatly extolled, and elo-'
quence is celebrated as a precious gift. All men shout
when the eloquent man appears, holding the assembly
subdued or spellbound by his words (Sabh&saha), nay
he is supposed to remove all sin and to procure sustenance
for his friends. The knowledge of all things or, as Deussen
says, the knowledge of the origin of things, is taught by
the Br&hman.
We meet with passages of a very similar character, in
MIND AND SPEECH. 67
various parts of the BrahmaTias. One of the most startling
is found in a verse inserted in the Purusha-hymn, as given
in the Taittiriya-aranyaka (III, 12, 17), ' I know that great
sun-coloured Purusha, when on the verge of ,darkness, he,
the wise, rests, addressing them, after having thought all
forms, and having made their names/ Here we have only
to translate forms by €t6r?, and names by \6yoi, and we shall
not be very far from the world of thought in which Plato
and Aristotle 1 moved.
But although we can discover in this hymn an apprecia-
tion of the mysterious nature of speech, we look in vain
for the clear and definite idea that language and thought
are one, which can be so clearly read in the Greek word
Logos, both word and thought, nor do we find more than
plight anticipations of the Neo-platonist dogma that the
creation of the universe was in reality an utterance of the
hidden thoughts and words of the Deity.
Mind and Speech.
The following passages will give some idea of what was
thought in India about mind and language and their mutual
relation. They may be vague and mystical, but they show
at all events that a good deal of thought must have been
expended by the early thinkers of India on this problem,
the nature of speech and the relation between speech and
thought.
$atap. Brahinana VI, i, i : ' Prar/apati, after having
created the Veda (Brahman, neut.), created the waters out
of Va/c (speech), for Va/c was his. That was created (sent
forth). He then entered the waters with Brahman, i. e. the
threefold Veda, and there arose from the water an egg
which he touched and commanded to multiply. Then from'
the egg there arose first Brahman, neut., that is, the three-
fold Veda.'
Paw/cavimsa Brahmana XX, 14, 2 : ' Pra</apati alone was
this, and Va& was his own, VaA as the second. He thought,
Let me create (send forth) this VaA, for she will go and
become all this.*
1 See Deussen, 1. c., p. 990.
F 2
68 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Satap. Brahin. VII, 5, 2, 21 : 'The unborn is \&7s, and
from VMAVi,svaka,rman (the all-maker) begat living beings/
Brih. Ar. Up. I, 5, 3 : * The Atman consists of speech,
mind, and breath. There are also the three worlds ; speech
is this world, mind the air, breath the sky. The same are
the three Vedas, speech the Big-veda, mind the Ya#ur-veda,
breath the Sama-veda. The same are gods, ancestors, and
men, speech the gods, mind the ancestors, breath men, &c/
Brih. Ar. Up. I, i, 24 : 'He desired, let a second body be
born of me, and he (death or hunger) embraced speech with
his mind/
A And ibid. I, 4, 17: 'This world in the beginning was
Atman (Self), alone and lonely. He desired, May I have
a wife . . . Manas (mind) is the Self, speech the wife, breath
the child/
The same or very similar and often contradictory ideas
occur in later works also. Thus we read in Manu I, 21 :
' In the beginning he (Brahma) fashioned from the words
of the Veda, the several names, works, and conditions of all
things/
And to quote but one' passage from the Mahabharata,
£anti-parva, 8533 : ' In the beginning Vidya (knowledge,
Sophia) without beginning or end, the divine VfiJb (speech)
of the Vedas, was sent forth by SvayambM, the self-
existent/
Samkara, when treating of Sphola * (word), of which we
shall have to treat further on, quotes from the Bnh. Ar.
Up. I, 2, 4 : 'He with his mind united himself with speech/
and he adds an important verse from some Smriti: 'In
the beginning divine Va/c, Speech, eternal, without begin-
ning or end. consisting of Veda, was uttered by Svayambhft,
from which all activities proceeded ' ;
And again: 'In the beginning Mahesvara shaped from
the words of the Veda the names and forms of all beings
and the procedure of all activities/
The Laws of Manu, or, more correctly, of the Manavas,
the clan of Manu, are no doubt later than the BrahrnaTias,
but they often contain old thoughts.
1 Ved. Sutras I, o, a8.
MIND AND SPEECH. 69
These utterances, to which many more might be added,
are certainly vague, and chaotic, and often contradictory,
because they sprang from different minds without any pre-
arranged system; but they seem to me to show at all
events that thought and language must have occupied the
philosophers of India far more than they did the philo-
sophers of Greece, and even in later times those of modern
Europe. And if some of them assigned the first place to
thought and others to speech, this also serves to show that
at all events these early guessers did not accept ' language
simply as a matter of course, as most of our modern philo-
sophers are so apt to do, but tried hard to discover whence
it came and what was its true relation to thought. Thus
we read in the $atap. Br. I, 4, 5, 8 : l A dispute once took
place between Mind and Speech as to which was the better
of the two. Both said, "I am excellent." Mind said:
<; Surely I am better than thou, for thou. dost not speak
anything that is not understood by me, and since thou art
only an imitator of what is done by me and a follower in
my wake, I am surely better than thou." Speech said :
" Surely I am better than thou, for what thou knowest
I make known, I communicate."
' They went to appeal to Pra</apati for his decision, and
Praaapati decided in favour of Mind, &c.'
In the Anugita (p. 262) we read on the contrary: 'Then
the lord of speech was produced, that lord of speech looks
up to the mind. First, verily, are words produced, and the
mind runs after them.'
Some of the Brahmanie thinkers say in so many words
that Speech is Brahman ($atap. Br, II, i, 4, 10, Vag vai
Brahma), and the co-existence of Brzhas-pati and Brah-
ma?ias-pati could hardly have failed to suggest to them the
identity of Brahman and Brih in the sense of speech, just
as every thoughtful Greek must have known that there
was a reason why Logos meant both word and thought.
But that ancient chapter of thought which lies beyond
the childhood of all philosophy is for ever lost to us and
can be reconstructed by conjectures only, which, though
they produce conviction in some minds, cannot be expected
to produce the same in all.
7O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Taking into account all these scattered indications; 1
cannot bring myself to accept the e\olution of the various
meanings of the word Brahman as elaborated by former
scholars. I am particularly reluctant to differ on such a
point from Professor Deussen. Professor Deussen holds
that Brahman had a ritualistic origin (p, 239), and from
prayer came to mean he who is prayed to, the Urgrund
der Welt He calls it der zwm Heiligen, Gottlichen empor-
strebende Wille des Menschen, which is much the same idea
to which fioth and others have given currency, but which
certainly requires a fuller justification. Instead of begin-
ning with the specialised meaning of prayer, whether
ritualistic or unpremeditated, and then rising to the object
of prayer, I prefer to begin with Br&hman as a synonym
of Erih in Brihasp&ti, meaning word or speech, and to
admit by the side of it another Br&hman, meaning that
which utters or drives forth (Pra&yavayati) or manifests
or creates, that which is the universal support (Skambha)
or force (Daksha), in fact the Brahman, such as we find it
afterwards, whether as a neuter, Brahman. or, for more
popular purposes, as a masculine, Brahma x. No doubt in
those dark passages through which words passed silently
before they, emerged into the full light of literature, we
may often fail to discover the right footsteps of their pro-
gress, and we must be .prepared for differences of opinion.
Sut the really important point is that on which all scholars
agree, by assigning to Brahman the final meaning of TO 6V,
rb 6V&>s 6V, rd Trpwrou KWOVV, though, even of those terms,
as we shall see, not one corresponds fully and exactly to
the character of Brdhman as developed in the history of
the Indian mind.
The next word we have to examine is Atman. It is next
in importance to Brahman only, and the two together may
be called the two pillars on which rests nearly the whole
of the edifice of Indian philosophy, more particularly of
the Vedanta and Samkhya systems.
1 Taitt. Br. II, 7, 17, i.
ATMAN. 71
As early as the time of the Apastamba-Sutras, that is, at
the end of the Vedic period, we read, I, 8, 23, i : —
* The BrahmaTia who is wise and recognises all things to
be in the Atman, who does not become bewildered when
pondering (on it), and who recognises the Atman in every
(created) thing, he shines indeed in heaven . . .'
And in the same Sutras, I, 8, 23, 2, we find a definition
of Brahman, as the cause of the world, which presupposes,
as clearly as possible, the prevalence of Vedantic ideas l at
the time of the author of this Sutra : —
c He who is intelligence itself and subtler than the thread
of the lotus-fibre, He who pervades the universe and who,
unchangeable and larger than the earth, contains this
universe; He who is different from the knowledge of
this world which is obtained by the senses and is identical
with its objects, possesses the highest (form of absolute
knowledge). From him who divides himself, spring all
(objective) bodies. He is the primary cause, eternal and
unchangeable.'
The etymology of Atman is again extremely obscure,
probably because it belongs to a pre-Sanskritie, though
Aryan stratum of Indian speech. However, there can
be little doubt that in the Veda Atman, in several places,
still means breath, as in Rv. X, 16, 3, suryam Jfc&kshuA
ga/cMatu, va'tam atma, words addressed ^ to a dead person,
' May the eye go to the sun, the breath (Atma) to the wind/
It then came to mean vital breath, life, and, like the spirit
or breath, was frequently used in the sense of vrhat *we
call soul. In some passages it is difficult to say whether
we should translate it by life or by spirit. From soul there
is but a small step to Self, and that step is often gram-
matical rather than real. If -in the Atharva-veda IX, 5, 30
we read : —
Atnictnain pitarain putram pautram pitamaham,
(ray am #amtrim mataiam ye priyas tan upa hvaye,
we have to translate in English, ' Myself, father, son, grand-
1 Yoga and Mimarnsti also are mentioned by name in the Apastamba-
Sntras, but not yet as definite systems of philosophy. Cf. I, 8, 23, 5; _
II, 4. 8, 13.
72 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
son, grandfather, wife, mother, whoever are dear, — I call
upon them/ But Self may here be translated by soul or
person also, just as we may say, * My soul doth magnify
the Lord/ instead of ' I magnify the Lord/ Again we read,
Rv. IX, 113, i, balam d£dhanaA atm£ni, 'putting strength
into oneself/ In the end Atman became the regular
pronoun self. I need not go through all the evidence
which may be seen in any Sanskrit dictionary1, but we
have still to see at what stage in its development Atman
became the definite name of the soul or Self within. This
transition of meaning in Atman offers a curious parallel
to that of As, in Asu and Asti, which we examined before.
There are passages such as Rv. I, 164, 4, bhflmyaA isu&
asrik &tma kva svit, * Where was the breath, the blood, the
spirit of the world?* Here Atma may be rendered by
spirit or life. But in other passages Atman signifies
simply the inmost nature of anything, and more par-
ticularly of man, so that in the end it means much the
same as what medieval philosophers would have called
the quiddity, or Indian philosophers the Idanta of things.
Thus we read at first &tinanam atman& pa.sya, ' see thy
Self by thy Self ; ' atmaiva hy &trnana/i sakshi, * Self is
the witness of Self/ In this sense Atman is afterwards
used as the name of the highest person, the soul of the
world (Paramatnian), and we read ($atap. Br. XIV, 5, 5, 15):
sa va ayam atma sarvesham^ bh&tanam adliipatiA, sarve-
sham bhfttanam ra#a, ' That Atman is the sovereign of all
beings, he is the king of all beings/
Pra^&pati, Brahman, Atman.
We have thus seen three words growing up in the hymns
and Brahmanas of the Veda, Prac/apati, Brahman, and
Atman, each of which by itself represents in mice a whole
philosophy or a view of the world. In Pra#apati we have
the admission of a personal and supreme being, a god above
all gods, a creator and ruler of the world. He created the
primeval waters and rose from them as Hirawyagarbha,
1 See Anthropological Religion, pp. 200 seq. ; Theosophy, pp. 247 seq.,
or more recently, Deussen's Geschichte der Philosophic, pp. 324 seq.
PRACZAPATI, BRAHMAN, ATM AN. 73
in order to send forth, to animate, and to rule all things.
Whether this Pra#apati was himself the material cause
of the world may seem doubtful. Many times it is said
that he was everything and that he desired to become
many, and thus created the world, in which case matter
also would have come out of him. In other places, how-
ever, the primeval waters seem to have been admitted as
existing by themselves and apart from Prac/apati (Rv. X,
121, 7). We also read that in the beginning there was
water over which Pratgapati breathed as wind and produced
the earth, or that the waters themselves produced a golden
egg from whence arose Pragfapati, the creator of gods and
men. There occur even in the Brahma^as allusions to the
legend well known from the Puramis, that a boar brought
forth (Udbabarha or Udvavarha from Vrih) the earth,
or that a tortoise supported it1.
A belief in that Pra^apati, as a personal god, was the
beginning of monotheistic religion in India, while the
recognition of Brahman and Atman, as one, constituted
the foundation of all the monistic philosophy of that
country.
1 M. M., India, pp. 134, 287.
CHAPTER III.
THE SYSTEMS OP PHILOSOPHY.
Growth of Philosophical Ideas.
WE have thus learnt the important lesson that all these
ideas, metaphysical, cosmological, and otherwise, burst forth
in India in great profusion and confusion, and without any
preconceived system.
We must not suppose that these ideas follow each other
in chronological succession. Here once more the Neben-
einander gives us the true key, much more than the
Nacheinander. We must remember that this earliest philo-
sophy existed for a long time without being fixed by
writing, that there was neither control, authority, nor
public opinion to protect it. Every Asrama or settlement
was a world by itself, even the -simplest means of com-
munication, such as high-roads or rivers, being often want-
ing. The wonder is that, in spite of all this, we should
find so much unity ii\ the numerous guesses at truth pre-
served to us among these Vedic ruins. This was due, we
are told, to the Parampara, i. e. to those who handed down
the tradition and at last collected whatever could be saved
of it. It would be a mistake to imagine that there was
a continuous development in the various meanings assumed
by or assigned to such pregnant terms as Prapapati,
Brahman, or even Atman. It is much more in accordance
with what we learn from the Brfthmanos and Upanisbads
of the intellectual life of India, to admit an infinite number
of intellectual centres of thought, scattered all over the
country, in which either the one or the other view found
influential advocates. We should then understand better
PRASTHANA BHBDA. 75
how Brahman, while meaning what bursts or drives forth,
came to signify speech andA prayer, as well as creative
power and creator, and why Atman meant not only breath,
but life, spirit, soul, essence, or what I have ventured to
render by the Self, das Sdbst^ of all things.
But if in the period of the Brahnianas and Upanishads
we have to find our way through religious and philo-
sophical thoughts, as through clusters of thickly tangled
creepers, the outlook becomes brighter as soon as we
approach the next period, which is characterised by per-
sistent attempts at clear and systematic thought. We
must not imagine that even then we can always discover
in the various systems of philosophy a regular historical
growth. The Sutras or aphorisms which we possess of the
six systems of philosophy, each distinct from the other,
cannot possibly claim to represent the very first attempts
at a systematic treatment ; they are rather the last summing
up of what had been growing up during many generations
of isolated thinkers,
Prasth&na Bheda.
What the Brahmans themselves thought of their philo-
sophical literature we may learn even from such modern
treatises as the Prasthana-bheda, from which I gave some
extracts by way of introduction to some papers of mine on
one of the systems of Indian philosophy, published as long
ago as 1852 in the Journal of the German Oriental Society.
It is but fair to state that the credit of having discovered
that tract of Madhusiidana Sarasvati, and perceived its
importance, belonged really to Colebrooke. I myself came
to be acquainted with it through my old friend, Dr. Trithen,
who had prepared a critical edition of it, but was prevented
by illness and death from publishing it. It was published in
the meantime by Professor Weber in his Indische Studien,
j 849, and I think it may be useful to give once more some
extracts from it l.
1 A new translation of the Prasthaua-bheda lias been published by
Prof. Deussen as an Introduction to his Allgemeine Geschichte der
Philosophic, vol. i, p. 44, 1894.
76 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
' Nyaya1/ he writes, * is logic2, as promulgated by Gotarna3
in five Adhyayas (lessons). Its object is knowledge of the
nature of the sixteen Padarthas by means of name, defini-
tion, and examination/ These Padarthas are the important
or essential topics of the Nyaya philosophy; but it has
proved very misleading to see Padartha here translated by
categories. No one could understand why such things as
doubt, example, wrangling, &c., could possibly be called
categories or praed,icahilia, and it is no wonder that Bitter
and others should have spoken of the Nyaya with open
contempt, as they have done, if such things were repre-
sented to them as the categories of Indian logic.
' There is also the Vaiseshika philosophy in ten lessons,
promulgated by Kan£da. Its object is- to establish by their
similarities and dissimilarities 4 the six Badarthas, viz. :—
1. Dravya, substance.
2. Guna, quality.
3. Karman, activity.
4. Samanya, what is general and found in more than one object. The
highest Samanya is Satta or being.
5. Visesha, the differentia or what is special, residing in eternal
atoms, &c.
6. Samavaya, inseparable inherence, as between cause and effect, parts
and the whole, £c.
To which may be added
7. Abh/iva, negation.
This philosophy also is called Nyaya/
The,se Padarthas of the Vaiseshikas, at least 1-5, may
indeed be called categories, for they represent what can be
1 Nyaya is derived from ni 'into,' and i Ho go.' The fourth member
of a 'syllogism is called Upanaya, * leading towards* or * induction.'
Balla'Atynu translates Nyaya by pftioSos.
a Anvikshiki as an old name of philosophy, more particularly of logic,
OCCUYS also in Gautama's Dharrnasastra II, 3. It is used sometimes as
synonymous with Mimuwsa, and is more comprehensive than logic.
3 As the MSS. vary between Gotuma and Gautama, I have kept the
former for the Nyayfi, 'philosopher,' the latter for Buddha.
* Barthelemy St. Hilaire, in his work on Indian Logic, p. 356, remarks,
'Kais le philosophe Vai.seshika n'a point cherche* a distinguer lea
categories entre elles, en <5riumernnt leurs propriltes, com me Ta fait le
S*;agirite. II n'a point montre*, eomme Aristote, leurs rapports et leurs
differences.' But this is exactly what he has done, cf. Sutras I, 8 seq.
PRASTHANA BEEDA. 77
Eredicated, in general, of the objects of our experience, or,
:om an Indian point of view, what is predicated by, or
what is the highest sense (Artha) of words (Pada). Thus
it has come to pass that Padartba, literally the meaning of
a word, was used in Sanskrit in the sense of things in
genera], or objects. It is rightly translated by category
when applied to the five Pad&rthas of Kaw&da, but such
a translation, doubtful even in the case of the sixth or
seventh Padartha of the Vaiseshikas, would of course be
quite misleading when applied to the Padarthas of Gotama.
The real categories would, in Ootama's system, find their
pjace mostly under Prameya, meaning not so much what
has to be proved or established, as what forms the object of
our knowledge.
Madhusftdana continues : * The Mimamsa also is twofold,
viz. the Karma-Mimamsa (work-philosophy) and the S&ri-
raka-Mim&msd, (philosophy of the embodied spirit). The
Karma-Mimamssl has been brought out by the venerable
Craimini in twelve chapters/
The objects of these twelve chapters are then indicated
very shortly, and so as to be hardly intelligible without
a reference to the original Sutras. Dharma, the object of
this philosophy, is explained as consisting of acts of duty,
chiefly sacrificial. The second, third, and fourth chapters
treat l of the differences and varieties of Dharma, its parts
(or appendent members, contrasted with the main act), and
the principal purpose of each sacrificial performance. The
fifth chapter tries to settle the order of all sacrificial per-
formances, and the sixth the qualifications of its performers.
The subject of indirect precepts is opened in the seventh
chapter and carried on more fully in the eighth. Inferrible
changes, adapting to any variation or copy of certain
sacrincial acts what was designed for the types or models
of them, are discussed in the ninth, and bars or exceptions
in the tenth. Concurrent efficacy is considered in the
eleventh chapter, and co-ordinate effect in the twelfth ; that
is, the co-operation of several acts for a single result is the
1 I give this more intelligible description from Colebrooke, Miscellaneous
Essays, vol. i, p. 330 seq.
78 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
subject of the one, and the incidental effect of an act, of
which the chief purpose is different,, is discussed in the
other l.
'There is also the Sa?rikarshafta-k&?MZa, consisting of
four chapters, composed by Gaimini, and this,, which is
known by the name of Devata-k&ncfai,, belongs to the
Karma-Mimawsa, because it teaches the act called Upasanli,
or worship.
* Next follows the $&riraka-M}ma/wsa, consisting of four
chapters. ItsA object is to make clear the oneness of
Brahman and Atman (Self), and to exhibit the rules, which
teach the investigation (of it) by means of Vedic study, &c/
It is in fact much more what we call a system of philosophy
than the Purva-Mim&msa, and it is quoted by different
names, such as Uttara-Mim&ms&, Brahma-Mimams&, Ve-
d&nta, &c.2
* In the first lecture is shown the agreement with which
all Vedanta passages refer, directly or indirectly, to the
inward, undivided, second-less Brahman. In the first section
are considered Vedic passages which have clear indications
of Brahman ; in the second, passages which have obscure
indications of Brahman, and refer to Brahman so far as
he is an object of worship; in the third, passages which
have obscure indications of Brahman, and mostly refer to
Brahman, so far as he or it is an object of knowledge.
Thus the consideration of the Vedanta texts has been
finished, and in the fourth section such words as Avyakta,
A.g&, &c., are considered, of which it can be doubtful
whether they may not refer to ideas, adapted and formu-
lated by the Samkhya philosophers, such as Pradhana,
Prakriti, which is generally, though quite wrongly, trans-
lated by nature, as independent of Brahman or Purusha.
' The convergence of all Ved&nta texts on the second-less
Brahman having thus been established, Vyasa or Badara-
yawa, fearing an opposition by means of arguments such as
1 Professor Deussen has given a somewhat different version of these
titles. He gives, for instance, as the subject of the fifth chapter the
successive order of recitation, as enjoined by Srtiti, but to judge from
Mim. Sutras V, i, i, the right meaning seems to be the * settling of the
order of performance, according to Sruti, subject-matter, recitation, &c."
a Read Adya for Akhya in the Frasthana bheda.
PRASTHANA BHEDA. 79
have been produced by acknowledged Smritis and various
other systems, undertakes their refutation, and tries to
establish the incontrovertible validity of his own argu-
ments in the second lecture. Here, in the first section, the
objections to the convergence of the Vedanta passages on
Brahman, as stated by the Smritis of the Samkhya-yoga,
the K£?iadas, and by the arguments employed by the
Samkhyas, are disposed of. In the second section is shown
the f aultiness of the views of the followers of the S&mkhya,
because every examination should consist of two parts, the
establishment of our own doctrine and the refutation of
the doctrine of our opponents. In the third section the
contradictions between the passages of the Veda, referring
to the creation of the elements and other subjects, are
removed in the first part, and in the second those referring
to individual souls. In the fourth section are considered
all apparent contradictions between Vedic passages referring
to the senses and their objects.
fln the third chapter follows the examination of the
means (of salvation). Here in the first section, while con-
sidering the going to and returning from another world
(transmigration), dispassionateness has to be examined. In
the second section, the meaning of the word Thou is made
clear, and afterwards the meaning of the word That. In
the third section there is a collection of words, if not purely
tautological, all referring to the unqualified Brahman, as
recorded in different £akhas or branches of the Veda ; and
at the same time the question is discussed whether certain
attributes recorded by other jS&kh&s in teaching a qualified
or unqualified Brahman, may be taken together or not.
In the fourth section the means of obtaining a knowledge of
the unqualified Brahman, both the external, such as sacrifices
and observing the four stations in life, and the internal,
such as quietness, control, and meditation, are investigated.
* In the fourth chapter follows an inquiry into the special
rewards or fruits of a knowledge of the qualified and un-
qualified Brahman. In the first section is described salva-
tion of a man even in this life, when free from the influence
of good or bad acts, after he has realised the unqualified
Brahman by means of repeated study of the Veda, &c. In
8O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
the second section the mode of departure of a dying man
is considered. In the third, the further (northern) road of
a man who died with a full knowledge of the unqualified
Brahman is explained. In the fourth section the obtain-
ment of disembodied aloneness by a man who knows the
unqualified Brahman is first described, and afterwards the
abode in the world of Brahman, promised to all who know
the qualified (or lower) Brahman.
' This, the Vedanta, is indeed the principal of all doctrines,
any other doctrine is but a complement of it, and therefore
it alone is to be reverenced by all who wish for liberation,
and this according to the interpretation of the venerable
$amkara — this is the secret ! '
Here we see clearly that Madhusudana considered the
Vedanta-philosophy as interpreted by $amkara, if not as
the only true one, still as the best of all philosophies. He
made an important distinction also between the four, the
Nyaya, Vaiseshika, P&rva, and Uttara-MimamsS, on one
side, and the remaining two, the Samkhya and Yoga-
philosophies on the other. It is curious indeed that this
distinction has been hitherto so little remarked. According
to Madhusftdana, the philosophies of Gotama and Ka?iada
are treated simply as Srnritis or Dharmasastras, like the
Laws of Manu, nay like the Mahabharata l of Vyasa, and
the RamayaTia of Valmiki. Of course these systems of
philosophy cannot be called SmHti in the ordinary sense
of Dharmas&stra ; but, as they are Snm'ti or tradition, and
not $ruti or revelation, they may be said to teach Dharma,
if not in legal, at least in the moral sense of that word.
Anyhow it is clear that S&mkhya and Yoga were looked
upon as belonging to a class different from that to which
the two Mimamsas, nay even Nyaya and Vaiseshika, and
the other recognised branches of knowledge belonged, which
together are* represented as the eighteen branches of the
Trayi (the Veda). Though it may be difficult to understand
the exact reason of this distinction, the distinction itself
should not be passed over.
'The Samkhya/ Madhusfldana continues, 'was brought
1 See Dnhlinann, Das Mahabhftrata als Epos und Rechtsbuch, 1896.
PRASTHANA BHEDA. . 8 1
out by the venerable Kapila in six Adhyayas. In the first
Adhy&ys the objects for discussion are considered ; in the
second the effects or products of Pradliana, or original
matter; in the third aloofness from sensuous objects; in
the fourth stories about dispassionate persons, such as
Pingala (IV, n), the fletcher (IV, 18), &c.; in the fifth
there is refutation of opposite opinions; in the sixth
a resume of the whole. The chief object of the Samkhya-
philosophy is to teach the difference between Prakriti and
the Purushas.
'Then follows the Yoga-philosophy as taught by the
venerable Pata/?<7ali, consisting of four parts. Here in the
first part meditation, which stops the activity and distrac-
tion of the mind, and, as a means towards it, repeated
practice and dispassionateness, are discussed ; in the second
the eight accessories which serve to produce deep medita-
tion even in one whose thoughts are distracted, such as
(II, 29) restraint, observances, posture, regulation of breath,
devotion, contemplation, and meditation ; in the- third, the
supernatural powers; in the fourth aloneness. The chief
object of this philosophy is to achieve concentration by
means of stopping all wandering thoughts/
After this follows a short account of the Pasupata and
Patt/caratra-systems, and then a recapitulation which is of
interest. Here Madhusftdana says, ' that after the various
systems have been explained, it should be clear that there
are after all but three roads.
i. The Arambha-vada,the theory of atomic agglomeration.
* a. The Parirmma-vada, the theory of evolution.
3. The Vivarta-vada, the theory of illusion.
The first theory holds that the four kinds of atoms
(ATIU), those of earth, water, fire, and air, by becoming
successively double atoms, &c., begin the world which
culminates in the egg of Brahman.
This first theory, that of the Tarkikas (Nyaya and
Vaiseshika) and the Mimamsakas, teaches that an effect
which was not (the world), is produced through the activity
of causes which are.
The second theory, that of the Samkhyas, Yoga-pa ta/7#a-
las, and Pasupatas, says that Pradhana alone, sometimes
6 G
82 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
called Prak?'iti or original matter, composed, as it is,
of the Gu?*as of Sattva (good), Ra#as (moderate), and
Tamas (bad), is evolved through the stages of Mahat (per-
ceiving) and Ahamkara (subjectivity) ink) the shape of the
(subjective and objective) world. From this point of view
the effected world existed before as real, though in a subtile
(invisible) form, and was. rendered manifest through the
activity of a cause.
^Ihe third theory, that of the Brahmavadins (Vedanta),
says that the^ self-luminous and perfectly blissful Brahman
which has no second, appears by mistake, through its own
power of Maya, as the world, while the Vaislmavas
(Ramanugra, &c.) hold that the world is an actual and true
evolution of Brahman.
But in reality all the Munis who have put forward these
theories agree in wishing to prove the existence of the one
Supreme Lord without a second, ending in the theory of
illusion (Vivarta). These Munis cannot be in error, con-
sidering that they are omniscient; and these different
views have only been propounded by them, in order to
keep off all nihilistic theories, and because they were afraid
that human beings, with their inclinations towards the
objects of the world, could not be expe'cted at once to know
the true goal of man. But all comes right when we
understand that men, from not understanding their true
object, imagined that these Munis would have propounded
what is contrary to the Veda, and thus, accepting their
opinions, have become followers of various paths/
Much of what has here been translated from Madhu-
sftdana's Prasthana-bheda, though it gives, a general survey,
is obscure, but will become more intelligible hereafter when
we come to examine each of the six philosophies by itself ;
nor is it at all certain that his view of the development of
Indian philosophy is historically tenable. But it shows at
all events a certain freedom of thought, which we see now
and then in other writers also, such as Vi<7/7ana-bhikshu,
who are bent on showing that there is behind the diversity
of Vedanta, Sa/mkhya, and Nyaya one and the same truth,
though differently expressed; that philosophies, in fact,
may be many, but truth is one.
PRASTHANA BHEDA. 83
But however we may admire this insight on the part of
Madhusudana and others, it is our duty, as historians of
philosophy, to study the different paths by which different
philosophers, whether by the light of revelation or by thaty
of their own unfettered reason, have striven to discover
the trr.th. It is the very multiplicity and variety of these
paths that form the chief interest of the history of philo-
sophy, and the fact that to the present day these six
different systems of philosophy have held their own in the
midst of a great multitude of philosophic theories, pro-
pounded by the thinkers of India, shows that we must
first of all try to appreciate their characteristic peculiarities,
before attempting with Madhusudana to eliminate their
distinctive features.
These philosophers are —
1. Badarayana, called also Vyasa Dvaipayana orKrislma
Dvaipayana, the reputed author of the Brahma-Sutras,
called also Uttara-Mimamsa-Sutras, or V/asa-Sutras.
2. (jaimini, the author of the PCirva-Mim&msa-Sutras.
3. Kapila, the author of the Samkhya-Sutras.
4. Pata/7(T/ali, also called $esha or PhaTiin, the autlior of
the Yoga-Sutras.
5. Kanada, also called Kanabhu#, Karcabhakshaka, or
UltAika, the author of the Vaiseshika-Sutras.
6. Gotama, also called Akshapada, the author of the
Nyaya-Sutras.
It is easy to see that the philosophers to whom our
Sutras are ascribed, cannot be considered as the first
originators of Indian philosophy. These Sutras often
refer to other philosophers, who therefore must have
existed before the time when the Sfttras received their
final form. Nor could the fact that come of the Sutras
quote and refute the opinions of other Sfttras, be accounted
for without admitting a growing up of different philo-
sophical schools side by side during a period which pre-
ceded their last arrangement. Unfortunately such refer
ences hardly ever give us the title of a book, or its author,
still less the ipsissima verba. When they refer to such
topics as Purusha and Prakriti we know that they refer
to the S&mkhya, if they speak of A?ius or atoms, we know
a 2
84 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
that their remarks are pointed at the Vaiseshikas. But it
by no means follows that they refer to the Samkhya or
Vaiseshika-Sfttras exactly as we now possess them. Some
of these, as has been proved, are so modern that they could
not possibly be quoted by ancient philosophers. Our
S&mkhya-Sfttras, for instance, have been proved by
Dr. F. Hall to be not earlier than about 1380 A. D., and
they may be even later. Startling as this discovery was,
there is certainly nothing to be said against the arguments
of Dr. Hall or against those by which Professor Garbe l has
supported Dr. Hall's discovery. In this case, therefore,
these Sutras should be looked upon as a mere rifaccimento,
to take, the place of earlier S&tras, which as early as the
sixth cent. A.D. had probably been already superseded by
the popular S&mkhya-k&rik&s and then forgotten. This
late date of our Samkhya-Sutras may seem incredible, but
though I still hold that the Sutra-style arose in a period
when writing for literary purposes was still in its tentative
stage, we know that even in our time there are learned
Pandits who find no difficulty in imitating this ancient
Sutra-style. The Sutra-period, reaching down as far as
Asoka's reign in the third century, and his Council in
243 B.C., .claims not only the famous Sutras of P&Tiini, but
has also been fixed upon as the period of the greatest
philosophical activity in India, an activity called forth, it
would seem, by the strong commotion roused by the rise
of the Buddhist school of philosophy, and afterwards of
religion.
Literary References in the Upanlshads.
It is of considerable importance to remember that of the
technical names of the six systems of philosophy, two only
occur in the classical Upanishads, namely Samkhya and Yoga
or S&wkhya-yoga. Vedanta does not occur, except in the
$vet&8vatara, MumZaka and some of the later Upanishads 2.
Mima;m8& occurs in the general sense of investigation, Nyaya
1 Garbe, Die Sawkhya-Philosophie, p. 71.
8 A curious distinction is made in a commentary on the Gautama-
Sutras XIX, 12, where it is said that ' those parts of the Aranyakas which
ar* not Upanishads are called Vedantas.'
THE SIX SYSTEMS OP PHILOSOPHY. 85
and Vaiseshika are altogether absent, nor do we meet with
such words as Hetuvidya, or Anvikshiki, nor with the
names of the reputed founders of the six systems, except
those of the two Mimamsas, Badaraya?ia and ffaimini. The
names of Pata/tyali, or Ka^ada, are absent altogether, while
the names of Kapila and Gotarna, when they occur, refer,
it would seem, to quite different personalities,
The Six Systems of Philosophy.
No one can suppose that those whose names are men-
tioned as the authors of these six philosophical systems,
were more than the final editors or redactors of the Sutras
as we now possess them. If the third century B.C. should
seem too late a date for the introduction of writing for
literary purposes in India, we should remember that even
inscriptions have not yet been found more ancient than
those of Asoka, and there is a wide difference between
inscriptions and literary compositions. The Southern
Buddhists do not claim to have reduced their Sacred Canon
to writing before the first century B.C., though it is well
known that they kept up close relations with their
Northern co-religionists who were acquainted with writ-
ing1. During all that time, therefore, between 477 and
77 B.C., ever so many theories of the world, partaking of
a Vedanta, Sa??ikhya or Yoga, nay even of a Buddhist
character, could have sprungA up and have been reduced to
a mnemonic form in various Asramas. We need not wonder
that much of that literature, considering that it could be
mnemonic only, should have been irretrievably lost, and
we must take care also not to look upon what has been
left to us in the old Darcanas, as representing the whole
outcome of the philosophical activity of the whole of
India through so many generations. All we can say is
that philosophy began to ferment in India during the
period filled by Branmittas and Upanishads, nay even in
some of the Vedic hymns, that the existence of Upanishads,
though not necessarily our own, is recognised in the Bud-
dhist Canon, and lastly that the name of Suttas, as a
1 The snered Bo-tree in. the city of Anuradhapura in Ceylon was grown,
we are told, from a branch of the tree at Buddha Gaya.
86 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
component part of the Buddhist Canon, must be later than
that of the earliest Brahmanic Sutras, because in the mean-
time the ' meaning of the word had been changed from
short mnemonic sentences to fully developed discourses.
Possibly Sutra was originally meant for the text to be
elucidated in a sermon, so that the long Buddhistic sermons
came to be called Suttas in consequence.
Brihaspati-S&tras.
That some of the earlier philosophical Sutras were lost,
is shown in* the case of the Brihaspati-Sutras. These are
said to have contained the doctrines of the out and out
materialists, or sensualists, the Laukayatikas or 7farvakas,
who deny the existence of everything beyond what is
given by the senses. They are referred to by Bhaskara-
Hrya at Brahma-Sutras III, 3, 53 *, and as he gives an
extract, it is likely that they still existed in his time,
though no MS. of them has been found as yet in India.
The same applies to such Sutras as the Vaikhanasa-Sutras,
possibly intended for the Yanaprasthas, and the Bhikshu-
Sutras-, quoted by PaTiini, IV, 3, no, and intended, it
would seem, for Brahmanic, and not yet for Buddhistic
mendicants. It is a sad truth which we have to learn
more and more, that of the old pre-Buddhistic literature
we have but scanty fragments, and that even these may
be, in some cases, mere reproductions of lost originals, as in
the case of the Samkhya- Sutras. We know now that such
Sutras could have been produced at any time, and we
should not forget that even at present, in the general decay
of Sanskrit scholarship, India still possesses scholars who
can imitate K&lidasa, to say nothing of such poems as the
Mahabharata and Ramayana, and so successfully that few
scholars could tell the difference. It is not long ago that
I received a Sanskrit treatise written in Sutras with a com-
mentary, the work of a living scholar in India, which
might have deceived many a European scholar of Sanskrit
1 Colebrooke^ Misc. Essays*, I, 429.
3 They were identified by T&r&n&tha Tarkav&tospati with the Vedanta-
Sutras ; see Siddhanta KaumudS, vol. i, p. 593.
BOOKS OF REFERENCE. 87
literature \ If that is possible now, if, as in the case ot
the Kapila-Sutras, it was possible in the fourteenth cen-
tury, why should not the same have taken place during
the period of the Renaissance in India, nay even "at an
earlier time ? At all events, though grateful for what has
been preserved, and preserved in what may seem to us
an almost miraculous manner, we should not imagine that
we possess all, or that we possess what we possess in its
original form.
Books of Reference.
I shall mention here some of the most important works
only, from which students of philosophy, particularly those
ignorant of Sanskrit, may gain by themselves a knowledge
of the six recognised systems of Indian Philosophy. The
titles of the more important of the original Sanskrit texts
may be found in Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, vol. ii,
p. 239 seq., and in the Catalogues, published since his time,
of the various collections of Sanskrit MSS. in Europe and
India. -
For the Vedanta-philosophy of Badaraya^a the most
useful book is Thibaut.'s English translation of the text of
the Sutras and $arakara's commentary in the S. B. E., vols.
xxxiv and xxxviii.
Of books written in German, Deussen's translation of the
same work, 1887, preceded as it was by his 'System des
Vedanta/ 1883, can be thoroughly recommended.
Of the Samkhya-system we have the Sutras translated
by Ballantyne in 1882-1885, the Aphorisms of the Samkhya
Philosophy of Kapila, with illustrative extracts from the
Commentaries, 1852, 1865, 1885.
In German we have the Samkhya-Prava&ana-Bhashya,
Vi</>7ana-bhikshu's Commentar zu den Samkhya-Sutras,
ubersstzt von R. Garbe, 1889. Also Aniruddha's Com-
mentary and the original parts of Vedantin Mahadeva's
commentary on the S&wkhya-Sutras, by Richard Garbe,
J 892.
1 It is called KatantraArfcfcandaftprakriya by JTandrakanta Tarkalankara,
1896, and gives additional Sutras to the Katantra on Vedic Grammar.
He makes no secret that Sutraw vnttis A-obhayam api mayaiva vyara#»
' the Sutra and the commentary, both were composed by me.'
88- INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Der Mondschein der Samkhya Wahrheit, Va/raspatimi^ra's
Samkhya- tattva-kauinudi, iibersetzt von R. Garbe, 1892, is
also a very useful work.
The S&mkhya Karika by f swarakrishna, translated from
the Sanscrit by H. T. Colebrooke, also the Bhashya or com-
mentary by Gaurapada; translated and illustrated by an
original comment by H. H. Wilson, Oxford, 1837, may still
be consulted with advantage.
Other useful works are :—
John Davies, Hindu Philosophy. The Sankhya Karika
of IswarakVishna, London, 1881.
Die Samkhya-Philosophie, nach den Quellen, von R. Garbe,
1894.
Of the Purva-Mimamsa or simply Mtmamsa, which deals
chiefly with the nature and authority of the Veda with
special reference to sacrificial and other duties, we have
the Sfttras with /Sabarasvamin's commentary published in
the original; but there is as yet no book in English in
which that system may be studied, except Professor Thi-
baut's translation of Laugakshi Bhaskara's Arthasamgraha,
a short abstract of that philosophy, published in the Benares
Sanskrit Series, No. 4.
The Vaiseshika system of philosophy may be studied in
an English translation of its S&tras by A. E. Gough,
Benares, 1873 ; also in a German translation by Roer,
Zeitschriffc der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft,
vols. 21 and 22, and in some articles of mine in the same
Journal of the German Oriental Society, 1849.
The Nyaya-Sfttras of Gotama have been translated, with
the exception of the last book, by Ballantyne, Allahabad,
1850-57.
The Yoga-Sfttras are accessible in an English translation
by Rajendralala Mitra, in the Bibiiotheca Indica, Nos. 462,
478, 482, 491, and 492.
Dates of the Philosophical Sfctras.
If we consider the state of philosophical thought in India
such as it is represented to us in the Brahmawas and
Upanishads, and afterwards in the canonical books of the
Buddhists, we cannot wonder that all attempts at fixing
DATES OP THE PHILOSOPHICAL SttTEAS. 89
the dates of the six recognised systems of philosophy, nay
even their mutual relationship, should hitherto have failed.
It is true that Buddhism and ffainism were likewise but
two philosophical systems out of many, and that it has
been possible to fix" their dates. But if in their case we
know something about their dates and their historical
development, this is chiefly due to the social and political
importance which they acquired during the fifth, the
fourth, and the third centuries B. o., and not simply to their
philosophical tenets. We know also that there were many
teachers, contemporaries of Buddha, but they have left no
traces in the literary history of India.
Nor should we forget that, though the date of the
Buddhist Canon may be fixed, the date of many of the
texts which we now possess and accept as canonical is by
no means beyond the reach of doubt.
In the Buddhist annals themselves other teachers such
as (?tfatiputra, the Nirgrantha, the founder of Gainism,
Pftrana Kasyapa, Kakuda KMyayana, A#ita Kesakambali,
Sam^aya Vaira^i-putra. Gosali-putra, the Maskarin, are
mentioned by the side of Gautama, the prince of the clan
of the S&kyas. One of these only became known in his-
tory, (?/?atiputra, the Nirgrantha or gymnosophist, because
the society founded by him, like the brotherhood founded
by Buddha, developed into a powerful sect, the Gain as.
Another, Gosali with the bamboo stick, originally an Agi-
vaka, then a follower of Mahavira, became likewise the
founder of a sect of his own, which, however, has now
disappeared1. Cr/iatiputra or Nataputta was actually the
senior of Buddha.
Though it seems likely that the founders of the six
systems of philosophy, though not the authors of the
Sfttras which we possess, belonged to the same period of
philosophical and religious fermentation which gave rise to
the first spreading of Buddha's doctrines in India, it is by
no means clear that any of these systems, in their literary
form, are presupposed by Buddhism. This is owing to the
vagueness of the quotations which are hardly ever given
1 Kern, Buddhismus, I, p. 182.
90 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
verbatim. In India, during the mnemonic period of litera-
ture, the contents of a book may have become considerably
modified, while the title remained the same. Even at a
much later time, when we see Bhartrihari (died 650 A.D.)
referring to the Mimamsaka, Samkhya, and Vaiseshika
Darsanas, we have no right to* conclude that he knew these
Darsanas exactly as we know them, though he may well
have known these philosophies after they had assumed
their systematic form. Again, when he quotes Naiyayikas,
it by no means follows that he knew our Gotama-Sfttras,
nor have we any right to say that our Gotama-Sutras
existed in his time. It is possible, it is probable, but it is
not certain. We must therefore be very careful not to rely
too much on quotations from, or rather allusions to, other
systems of philosophy.
The S&mkhya-Stitras, as we possess them, arc very chary
of references. They clearly refer to Vaiieshika and Nyaya,
when they examine the six categories of the former (V, 85)
and the sixteen Padarthas of the latter (V, 86). Whenever
they refer to the Anus or atoms, we know that they have
the Vaiseshika-philosophy in their minds; and once the
Vaiseshikas are actually mentioned by name (I, 35). Sruti,
which the Samkhyas were supposed to disregard, is very
frequently appealed to/Smrtti once (V, 123), and Vama-
deva, whose name occurs in both $ruti and Smriti, is
mentioned as one who had obtained spiritual freedom.
But ofA individual philosophers we meet only with Sanan-
dana AMrya (VI, 69^ and Patffoudkha (V, 32; VI, 68),
while the teachers, the A&aryas, when mentioned in general,
are explained as comprehending Eapila himself, as well as
others.
Ved&nta-Sfttras.
The Vedanta-Sutras contain more frequent references,
but they too do not help us much for chronological purposes.
Badarayana refers more or less clearly to the Buddhists,
the (?airia,s, Pasupatas, and Pa//Jtaratras, all of whom he is
endeavouring to refute. He never refers, however, to any
VEDANTA-SUTRAS. 9 1
literary work, and even when he refers to other philo-
sophical systems, he seems to avoid almost intentionally
the recognised names of their authors, nay even their tech-
nical terms. Still it is clear that the systems of the Purva-
Mimamsa, the Yoga, Samkhya, and Vai-seshika were in his
mind when he composed his Sutras, and among Mimamsic
authorities he refers by name to Gaimini, Badari, Audulomi,
A&marathya, Kasakritsna, Karsh^a^ini, and Atreya, nay
to a BadarayaTia also. We cannot be far wrong therefore
if we assign the gradual formation of the six systems of
philosophy to the period from Buddha (fifth century) to
Asoka (third century), though we have to admit, particu-
larly in the cases of Vedanta, S&mkhya, and Yoga a long
previous development reaching back through Upanishads
and BrahmaTias to the very hymns of the Big-veda.
It is equally difficult to fix the relative position l of the
great systems of philosophy, because, as I explained before,
they quote each other mutually. With regard to the rela-
tion of Buddhism to the six orthodox systems it seems to*
me that all we can honestly say is that schools of philosophy
handing down doctrines very similar to those of our six
classical or orthodox systems, are presupposed by the
Buddhist Suttas. But this is very different from the
opinion held by certain scholars that Buddha or his disciples
actually borrowed from our Sfttras. We know nothing of
S£mkhya-literature before the Samkhya-karikas, which
belong to the sixth century after Christ. Even if we
admit that the Tattva-samasa was an earlier work, how
could We, without parallel dates, prove any actual borrow-
ing on the part of Buddha or his disciples at that early
time?
In the Upanishads and BrahmaTias, though there is a
common note running through them all, there is as yet
great latitude and want of system, and a variety of opi-
nions supported by different teachers and different schools.
Even in the hymns we meet with great independence and
individuality of thought, which occasional!^ seems to
amount to downright scepticism and atheism.
1 Bhandarkar, Samkhya Philosophy (1871), p. 3.
92 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
We must keep all this in mind if we wish to gain
a correct idea of the historical origin and growth of what
we are accustomed to call the six philosophical systems of
India. We have seen already that philosophical discussions
were not confined to the Brahmans, but that the Kshatriyas
also took a very active and prominent part in the elabora-
tion of such fundamental^ philosophical concepts as that of
Atman or Self.
It is out of this floating mass of philosophical and
religious opinion, which was common property in India,
that the regular systems slowly emerged. Though we do
not know in what form this took place, it is quite clear
that what we now possess of philosophical manuals, in the
form of Sfttras, could not have been -written down during
the time when writing for any practical purposes except
inscriptions on monuments and coins was still unknown in
India, or at all events had not yet been employed for
literary purposes, so far as we know.
Mnemonic Literature.
It has now been generally admitted, I believe, that
whenever writing has once become popular, it is next to
impossible that there should be no allusion to it in the
poetical or prose compositions of the people. Even as late
as the time of $amkara, the written letters are still called
unreal (Anrita) in comparison with the audible sounds, as
classified in the Pratisakhyas, which are represented by
them (Ved. Sutras II, i, 14, p. 451). There is no allusion
to writing in the hymns, the Brahman as and Upanishads ;
very few, if any, in the Sfitras. The historical value of
these allusions to writing which occur in the literature of
the Buddhists depends, of course, on the date which we can
assign, not to the original authors, but to the writers of
our texts. We must never forget that there was in India
during many centuries a purely mnemonic literature, which
continued down to the Siitra-period, and which was handed
down from generation to generation according to a system
which is fully described in the Pratisakhyas. What would
have been the use of that elaborate system, if there had
been manuscripts in existence at the same time ?
MNEMONIC LITERATURE. 93
When that mnemonic literature, that Smriti, came for
the first time to be reduced to writing, this probably took
place in something like the form of Sutras. The very
helplessness of the Sutra-style would thus become intel-
ligible. Letters at that time were as yet monumental
only, for in India also monumental writing is anterior to
literary writing, and to the adoption of a cursive alphabet.
Writing material was scarce in India, and the number of
those who could read must have been very small. At the
same time there existed the old mnemonic literature,
invested with a. kind of sacred character, part and parcel
of the ancient system of education, which had so far
answered all purposes and was not easy to supplant.
Much of that mnemonic literature has naturally been lost,
unless it was reduced to writing at the proper time. Often
the name may have survived, while tne body of a work
was entirely changed. Hence when we see the Samkhya
mentioned by name in the Buddhist texts, such as the
Visuddhi-m$gga (chap. XVII), it is impossible to tell
whether even at that time there existed a work on the
Sarakhya-philosophy in the form of Sutras. It is clear at
all events that it could not have been our Samkhya-Sutras,
nor even the Samkhya-karikas which seem to have super-
seded the ancient Sutras early in the sixth century, while
our present Sfttras date from the fourteenth.
It might be possible, if not to prove, at all events to
render probable the position assigned here to Buddha's
teaching as subsequent to the early growth of philosophical
ideas in their systematic and more or less technical form,
by a reference to the name assigned to his mother, whether
it was her real name or a name assigned to her by tradi-
tion. She was called Maya or Mayadevi. Considering
that in Buddha's eyes the world was Maya or illusion, it
seems more likely that the name was given to his mother
by early tradition, and that it was given not without
a purpose. And if so this could only have been after the
name of Avidya (nescience) in the Ved£nta, and of Prakriti
in the Samkhya-philosophy had been replaced by the tech-
nical term of Maya. It is well known that, in the old
classical Upanishads, the name of Maya never occurs ; and
94 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
it is equally significant that it does occur in the later and
more or less apocryphal Upanishads. In the $vetasvatara,
for instance, I, 10, we read, Mayam tu Prakritim vidyat,
' Let him know that Prakriti is Maya or Maya Prakriti/
This refers, it would seem, to the Samkhya system in
which Prakriti acts the part of J'JA.ya and fascinates the
Purusha, till he turns away from her and she ceases to
exist, at all events as far as he is concerned. But whether
in Samkhya .or Vedanta, M&ya .in its technical meaning
belongs certainly to a secondary period, and it might there-
fore be argued that Maya, as the name of Buddha's mother,
is not likely to have found a place in the Buddhistic legend
during the early period of Indian philosophy, as repre-
sented in the early Upanishads, and even in the SMras o£
these two prominent schools.
There was, no doubt, a certain amount of philosophical
mnemonic composition after the period represented by the
old Upanishads, and before the systematic arrangement of
the philosophical Sutras, but whatever may have existed
in it, is for ever lost to us. We can see this clearly in the
case of" the Brihaspati-philosophy.
The Bn'liaspati-Fhilosophy.
Brihaspati is no doubt a very perplexing character. His
name is given as that of the author of two Vedic hymns,
X, 7i,AX, 72, a distinction being made between a Brihas-
pati Angirasa and a Brihaspati Laukya (Lauk&yatika ?).
His name is well known also as one of the Vedic deities.
In Rv. VIII, 96, 15, we read that Indra, with Brihaspati
as his ally, overcame the godless people (adevi/i, vis&h). He
is afterwards quoted as the author of a law-book, decidedly
modern, which we still possess. Brihaspati is besides the
name of the planet Jupiter, and of the preceptor or Purohita
of the gods, so that Brihaspati-purohita has become a recog-
nised name of Indra, as having Brihaspati for his Burohita
or chief priest and helper. It seems strange, therefore,
that the same name, that of the preceptor of the gods,
should have been chosen as the name of the representative
of the most unorthodox, atheistical, and sensualistic system
of philosophy in India. We may possibly account for this
THE B/?/HASPATI-PHILOSOPin 95
by referring to the Brahmar<as and Upanishads, in which
B?*ihaspati is represented as teaching the demons his per-
nicious doctrines, not for their benefit, but for their own
destruction. Thus we read, MaitrayaTia Up. 7, 9 : —
' Brzhaspati, having become or having assumed the shape
of $ukra, brought forth that false knowledge, for the safety
of Indra and for the destruction of the Asuras (demons).
By it they show that good is evil and that evil is good,
and they say that this new law, which upsets the Veda
and the other sacred books, should be studied (by the
Asuras, the demons). That being so, it is said, Let no man
(but the demons only) study that false knowledge, for it is
wrong ; it is, as it were, barren. Its reward lasts only as
long as the pleasure lasts, as with one who has fallen
from his station (caste). Let that false doctrine not be
attempted, for thus it is said * : —
1. Widely divergent and opposed are these two, the one
known as false knowledge, the other as knowledge. I
(Yama) believe Na/dketas to be possessed of a desire for
knowledge ; even many pleasures do not tempt him away.
2. He who knows at the same time both the imperfect
knowledge (of ritual) and the perfect knowledge (of Self),
crosses death by means of the imperfect, and obtains, im-
mortality by means of the perfect knowledge 2.
3. Those who are wrapt up in imperfect knowledge
fancy themselves alone wise and learned, they wander
about floundering and deceived, like the blind led by a man
who is himself blind V
And again :—
'The gods and the demons, wishing to know the Self,
went once into the presence of Brahman (their father
Pra^apati 4). Having bowed 'before him, they said : " O
blessed one, we wish to know the Self, do thou tell us ! "
Thus, after considering, he thought, these demons believe
in a difference of the Atman (from themselves), and there-
fore a very different Self was taught to them. On- that
Self these deluded demons take their stand, clinging to it,
destroying the true boat of salvation, and praising untruth,
Upanishiid II, 4. 2 Va</. Up. II.
3 Kato. Up. II, 5. * TfMnd. Up. VIII, 8.
96 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
What is untrue they see as true, like jugglery. But in
reality, what is said in the Vedas, that is true. What is
said in the Vedas, on that the wise take their stand.
Therefore let no Brahman study what is not in the Vedas,
or this will be the result (as in the case of the demons)/
This passage is curious in several respects. First of all
it is a clear reference of one Upanishad to another, namely
to the K Aandogya, in which this episode of Br/haspati
giving false instruction to the demons is more fully de-
tailed. Secondly we see an alteration which was evidently
made intentionally. In the A^Aandogya Upanishad it is
Pra^apati himself who imparts false knowledge of the
Atman to the Asuras, while in the Maitr£ya7ia Upanishad
Brihaspati takes his place. It is not unlikely that Brihas-
pati was introduced in the later Upanishad in order to
take the place of Pra^apati, because it was felt to be
wrong that this highest deity should ever have misled
anybody, even the demons. In the -fiTMndogya the demons
who believed in the Anyata (otherness) of the Atman, that
is to say, in the possibility that the Atman could be in
some place different from themselves, were told to look
for it in the person seen in the pupil of the eye, or in the
image in a looking-glass, or in the shadow in the water.
All this would, however, refer to a visible body only.
Then Pra#&pati goes on to say that the Atman is what
moves about full of pleasures in a dream, and as this
would still be the individual man, he declares at last that
Atman is what remains in deep sleep, without however
losing its own identity.
If then in the Upanishads already Brihaspati was intro-
duced for the purpose of teaching wrong and unorthodox
opinions, we may possibly be able to understand how his
name came to cling to sensualistic opinions, and how at
last, however unfairly, he was held responsible for them.
That such opinions existed even at an earlier time, we
can see in some of the hymns in which many years ago
I pointed out these curious traces of an incipient scepticism.
In later Sanskrit, a Barhaspatya, or a follower of Brihas-
pati, has come to mean an infidel in general. Among the
works mentioned in the Lalita-vistara as studied by Buddha
THE B/?/HASPATI-PHILOSOPHY 97
a B£rhaspatyam is mentioned, but whether composed in
Sfttras or in metre does not appear. Besides, it is well
known that the Lalita-vistara is rather a broken reed to
rest upon for chronological purposes. If we may trust>
however, to a scholion of Bhuaskara on the Brahma-Sfltras,
he seems to have known, even at that late time, some
Sutras ascribed to Brihaspati1, in which the doctrines
of the J&Tarvakas, i. e, unbelievers, were contained. But
although such Sfttras may have existed, we have no means
of fixing their date as either anterior or posterior to the
other philosophic Sfttras. Panini knew of Sfttras which
are lost to us, and some of them may be safely referred
to the time of Buddha. He also in quoting Bhikshu-Sfttras
and Natfa-Sutras, mentions (IV, 3, no) the author of the
former as P&ra^arya, of the latter as £il£lin. As P&ra-
saryc. is a name of Vy&sa, the son of ParlUara, it has been
supposed that Panini meant by Bhikshu-Sfttras, the.
Brahma-Sfttras 2, sometimes ascribed to Vyasa, which we
still possess. That would fix their date about the fifth
century B.C., and has been readily accepted therefore by
all who wish to claim the greatest possible antiquity for
the philosophical literature of India. But Parasarya would
hardly have been chosen as the titular name »of Vyasa ;
and though we should not hesitate to assign to the doc-
trines of the Vedanta a place in the fifth century B.C., nay
even earlier, we cannot on such slender authority do the
same for the Sutras themselves.
When we meet elsewhere with the heterodox doctrines
of Brihaspati, they are expressed in verse, as if taken from
a Karika rather than from Sfttras. They possess a peculiar _
interest to us, because they would show us that India,
which is generally considered as the home of all that is
most spiritual and idealistic, was by no means devoid of
sensur l;stic philosophers. But thouglTit is difficult to say
how old such theories may have been in India it is certain
that, as soon as we get any coherent treatises on philosophy,
sensuajfetic opinions crop up among them.
Of course the doctrines of Buddha would be called
sceptical and atheistic by the Brahmans, and .ffarvaka as
1 Colebrooke, II, 429. a See before, p. 86,
7 H
98 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
well as Nastika are names freely applied to the Buddhists.
But the doctrines of Brihaspati, as far as We know them,
go far beyond Buddhism, and .nay be said to be hostile
to all religious feelings, while Buddha's teaching was both
religious and philosophical, though the lines that separate
philosophy and religion in India are very faint.
There are some tenets of the followers of Brihaspati
which seem to indicate the existence of other schools of
philosophy, by their side. The Barhaspatyas speak as
if being inter pares, they differ from others as others
differed from them, Traces of an opposition against the
religion of the Vedas (Kautsa) appear in the hymns, the
Brahman as, and the Sutras, and .to ignore them would give
us an entirely false idea of the religious and philosophical
battles and battle-fields of ancient India. As viewed from
a Brahmanic point of view, and we have no other, the
opposition represented by Brihaspati and others may seein
insignificant, but the very name given to these heretics
would seem to imply that their doctrines had met with
a world-wide acceptance (Lokayatikas). Another name,
that of Nastika, is given to them as saying No to every-
thing except the evidence of the senses, particularly to the
evidence of the Vedas, which, yunonsly enough, was called
by the Vedantists Pratyaksha, that is, self-evident, like
sense-perception.
These Nastikas, a name not applicable to mere dissenters,
but to out and out nihilists only, ai.*e interesting to us from
a historical point of view, because in arguing against other
philosophies, they prove, ipso facto, the e'xistence of ortho-
dox philosophical systems before their time. The recog-
nised schools of Indian philosophy could tolerate much;
they were tolerant, as we shall see, even towards a qualified
atheism, like that of the Sarakhya. But they had nothing
but hatred and contempt for the Nastikas, and it is for
that very reason, and on account of the strong feelings
of aversion which they excited, that it seemed to me right
that their philosophy should not be entirely passed 'Vet
by the side of the six Vedic or orthodox systems.
Madhava, in his Sarvadarsana-samgraha or the Epitome
of all philosophical systems, begins with an account of the
THE B#/HASPATI-PHILOSOPHY. 99
Nastika or jKarvaka system. He looks npon it as the
lowest of all, hut nevertheless, as not to be ignored in
a catalogue .of the philosophical forces of India. /£&rv£ka
(not Jfarvaka) is given as the name of a B&kshasa, and
he is treated as a historical individual to whom Brihas-
pati or Va/caspati delivered his doctrines. The name of
ATarv&ka is clearly connected with that of K lirva, and this
is given as a synonym of Buddha by B&las&strin in the
Preface to his edition of the K&ak& (p. a). He is repre-
sented as a teacher of the Lokayata or world- wide system,
if that is the meaning originally intended by that word.
A short account of this system is given in the Prabodha-
fcandrodaya 27, 18, in the following words: 'The Lokayata
system in which the senses alone form an authority, in
which the elements are earth, water, fire, and wind (not
Akasa or ether), in which wealth and enjoyment form the
ideals of man, in which the elements think, the other world
is denied, and death is the end of all things/ This name
Lokayata occurs already in Pa/raini's GaTia TJkthMi. It
should be noted however, that Hema/candra distinguishes
between Barhaspatya or Nastika, and If&rvaka or Lokfe-
yatika, though he does not tell us which he considers the
exact points on which th$ two are supposed to have
differed. The Buddhists use Lok&yata for philosophy in
general. The statement that the Lokayatas admitted but
one Pram&na, i. e. authority of knowledge, namely sensuous
perception, shows clearly that there must have been other
philosophical systems already in existence. We shall see
that the Vaiseshika acknowledged two, perception (Prat-
yaksha) and inference (Arminana); the S&nikhya three,
adding trustworthy affirmation (Aptavakya); the Nyaya
four, adding comparison lUpamana) ; the two Mim&wsils
six, adding presumption (Arthapatti) and privation (AbhU-
va). Of these and others we shall have to speak here-
after. Even what seems to us so natural an idea as that
of the four or five elements, required some time to develop,
as we see in the history of the Greek arotxcta, and yet such
an idea was evidently quite familiar to the jfif&rvakas.
While other systems admitted five, i.e. earth, water, fire,
air, and ether, they admitted four only, excluding ether,
H 2
1OO . INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
probably because it was invisible. In the Upanishads we
see traces of an even earlier triad of elements. All this
shows the philosophical activity of the Hindus from the
earnest times, and exhibits to us the K &rv&kas as denying
ratlier what had been more or less settled before their time,
than as adding any new ideas of their own.
So it is again with regard to the soul. Not only philo-
soph§rs, but every Arya in India had a word for soul, and
never doubted that there was something in man different
from the visible body. The If&rv&kas only denied this.
They held that what was called soul was not a thing by
itself, but was simply the body over again. They held
that itr was the body that felt, that saw and heard, that
remembered and thought, though they saw it every day
rotting away and decomposing, as if it never had been. By
such opinions they naturally came in conflict with religion
even more than with philosophy. We do not know how
they accounted for the evolution of consciousness and in-
tellect out of mere flesh, except that they took refuge with
a simile, appealing to the intoxicating power that can be
developed by mixing certain ingredients, which by them-
selves are not intoxicating, as an analogy to the production
of soul from body.
Thus we read : —
' There are four elements, earth, water, fire, and air,
And from these four elements alone is intelligence pro-
duced—
Just like the intoxicating power from Ki^wa, &c., mixed
together ; —
Since in " I am fat," " I am lean," these attributes abide
in the same subject,
And since fatness, &c., resides only in the body, it alone
is the soul and no other,
And such ^phrases as " my body " are only significant
metaphorically/
In this way the soul seems to have been to them the
body qualified by the attribute of intelligence, and therefore
supposed to perish with the body. Holding this opinion, it
is no wonder that they should have considered the highest
end of man to consist in sensual enjoyment, and that they
THE Btf/HASPATI-PflILOSOMUr. IO I
should have accepted pain simply as an inevitable con-
comitant of pleasure.
A verse is quoted :—
' The pleasure which arises to men from contact with
sensible objects,
Is to be relinquished as accompanied by pain — such is
the warning of fools ;
The berries of paddy, rich with the finest white grains,
What man, seeking his true interest, would fling them
away, because covered with husks and dust x ? '
From all this we see that, though fundamental philo-
sophical principles are involved, the chief character of the
Jf&rv&ka system was practical, rather *than metaphysical,
teaching utilitarianism and crude hedonism in the most
outspoken way. It is a pity that all authoritative books
of these materialistic philosophers should be lost, as they
would probably have allowed us a deeper insight into the
early history of Indian philosophy than the ready-made
manuals of the six Darsanas on which we have chiefly to
rely. The following verses preserved by M&dhava in his
Epitome- are nearly all we possess of the teaching of
Brihaspati and his followers: —
' Fire is hot, water cold, and the air feels cool ;
By whom was this variety made? (we do not know),
therefore it must have come from their own nature
(Svabh&va).'
Brihaspati himself is held responsible for the following
invective: —
'There is no paradise, no deliverance, and certainly no
Self in another world,
Nor are the acts of the Asramas (stations in life) or the
castes, productive of rewards.
The Agnihotra, the three Vedas, the three staves (carried
by ascetics) and smearing oneself with ashes,
They are the mode of life made by their creator a for
those who are devoid of sense and manliness.
1 See for these verses Cowell and Gough's translation of the Sarvadawana-
sa.ngraha, p. 4.
* Dhatri, creator, can here be ujed ironically only, instead of Svabhava,
or nature.
IO2 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
If a victim slain at the GyotisWoma will go to heaven,
Why is not his own father killed there by the sacrificer ?
If the £raddha-offering gives pleasure to beings that are
dead,
Then to give a viaticum to people who travel here on
earth, would be useless.
If those who are in heaven derive pleasure from offer-
ings,
Then why not give food here to people while they are
standing on the roof ?
As long .as he lives let a man live happily ; after borrow-
ing money, let him drink Ghee,
How can there be a return of the body after it has once
been reduced to ashes ?
If he who has left the body goes to another world,
Why does he not come back again perturbed by love of
his relations ?
Therefore funeral ceremonies for the dead were ordered
by the Brahmans.
As a means of livelihood, nothing else is known any-
where.
The three makers of the Vedas were buffoons, knaves,
and demons.
The speech of the Pandits is (unintelligible), like (?ar-
phari Turphari.
The obscene act there (at the horse sacrifice) to be per-
formed by the queen has been
Proclaimed by knaves, and likewise other things to be
taken in hand.
The eating of flesh was likewise ordered by demons.'
This is certainly very strong language, as strong as any
that has ever been used by ancient or modern materialists.
It is well that we should know how old and how widely
spread chis materialism was, for without it we should
hardly understand the efforts that were made on the other
side to counteract it by establishing the true sources or
measures of knowledge, the Prama/nas, and other funda-
mental truths whicli were considered essential both for
religion and for philosophy. The idea of orthodoxy, how-
ever, is very different in India from what it has been
I
THE Bfl/HASPATI-PHILO&OPH*. IO3
^Isewhere. We shall find philosophers in India who deny
the existence of a personal god or f svara, and who, never-
theless, were tolerated as orthodox as long as they recog-
nised the authority of the Veda, and tried to bring their
doctrines into harmony with Vedic texts. It is this denial
of the authority of the Veda which, in the eyes of the
Brahmans, stamped Buddha at once as a heretic, and drove
him to found a new religion or brotherhood, while those,
who followed the Sarakhya, and who on many important
points did not differ much from him, remained secure
within the pale of orthodoxy. Some of the charges
brought by the Barhaspatyas against the Brahmans who
followed the Veda are the same which the followers of
Buddha brought against them. Considering therefore, t;hat
on the vital question of the authority of the Veda the
Samkhya agrees, however inconsistently, with orthodox
Brahmanism and differs from the Buddhists, it would be
far easier to prove that Buddha derived his ideas from
Brihaspati than from Kapila, the reputed founder of the
Samkhya. If we are right in the description we have
given of the. unrestrained and abundant growth of philo-
sophical ideas in ancient India, the idea of borrowing, so
natural to us, seems altogether out of place in India.
A wild mass of guesses at truth was floating in the air,
and there was no controlling authority whatever, not even,
as far as we know, any binding public opinion to produce
anything like order in it". Hence we have as little right
to maintain that Buddha borrowed from Kapila as that
Kapila borrowed from Buddha. No one would say that
the Hindus borrowed the idea of building ships from the
Fhenieians, or that of building Stupas from the Egyptians.
In India we move in a world different from that which we
are accustomed to in Greece, Rome, or Modern Europe, and
we need not rush at once to the conclusion that, because
similar opinions prevail in Buddhism and in the Samkhya-
philosophy of Kapila, therefore the former must have bor-
rowed from the latter, or, as some hold, the latter from the
former.
Though we can well imagine what the spirit of the
philosophy of the ancient Indian heretics, wliether they
104 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
are called JSTarvakas or Barhaspatyas, may have been, we
know, unfortunately, much less of their doctrines than of
any other school of philosophy. They are to us no more
than names, such as the names of Y&gr£avalkya, Raikva, or
any other ancient leaders of Indian thought mentioned in
the Upanishads, and credited there with certain utterances.
We know a few of the conclusions at which they arrived,
but of the processes by which they arrived at them we
know next to nothing. What we may learn from these
utterances is that a large mass of philosophical thought
must have existed in. India long before there was any
attempt at dividing it into six well-defined channels of
systematic philosophy, or reducing it to writing. Even
when the names of certain individuals, such as Craimini,
Kapila, and others, are given us as the authors of certain
systems of philosophy, we must not imagine that they were
the original creators of a philosophy in the sense in which
Plato and Aristotle seem to have been so.
Common Philosophical Idea*.
It cannot be urged too strongly that there existed in
India a large common fund of philosophical thought which,
like language , belonged to no one in particular, but was like
the air breathed by every living and thinking man. Thus
only can it be explained that we find a number of ideas in
all, or nearly all, the systems of Indian philosophy which
all philosophers seem to take simply for granted, and
which belong to no one school in particular.
1 . Metempsychosis — Sams&ra.
The best known of these ideas, which belong to India
rather than to any individual philosopher, is that which
is known under the name of Metempsychosis. This is
a Greek word, like Metensomatosis, but without any
literary authority in Greek. It corresponds in meaning
to the Sanscrit Sams&ra, and is rendered in German by
Seelemvanderung. To a Hindu the idea that the souls
of men migrated after death into new bodies of living
beings, of animals, nay, even of plants, is so self-evident that
IMMOKTALITV OF THE SOUL IO5
it was hardly ever questioned. We never meet with any
attempt at proving or disproving it among the prominent
writers of ancient or modern times. As early as the
period of the Upanishads we hear of human souls being
reborn both in animal and in vegetable bodies. In
Greece the same opinion was held by Empedocles; but
whether he borrowed this idea from the Egyptians, as is
commonly supposed to have been the case, or whether
Pythagoras and his teacher Pherecydes learnt it in India,
is a question still hotly discussed. To me it seems that
such a theory was so natural that it might perfectly well
have arisen independently among different races. Among
the Aryan races, Italian, Celtic, and Scythic or Hyper-
borean tribes are mentioned as having entertained a faith
in Metempsychosis, nay, traces of it have lately been dis-
covered even among the uncivilised inhabitants of America,
Africa, and Eastern Asia. And why not ? In India certainly
it developed spontaneously ; and if this was so in India, why
not in other countries, particularly among races belonging
to the same linguistic stock? It should be remembered,
however, that some systems, particularly the Sarakhya-
phiiosophy, do not admit what we commonly understand by
Seelemvanderung. If we translate the Samkhya Purusha
by Soul instead of Self, it is not the Punish a that migrates,
but the S&kshma-tarira, the subtile body. The Self remains
always intact, a mere looker on, and its highest purpose is
this recognition that it is above and apart from anything
that has sprung from Prakr/ti or nature.
8. Immortality Of the Soul.
The idea of the immortality of the soul also should be
included in what was the common property of all Indian
philosophers. This idea was so completely taken for
granted that we look in vain for any elaborate arguments
in support of it. Mortality with the Hindus is so entirely
restricted to the body which decays and decomposes before
our very eyes, that such an expression as Atrnano »mrita-
tvam, immortality of the Self , sounds almost tautological in
Sanskrit. No doubt, the followers of Brihaspati would
7O6 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
deny a future life, but all the other schools rather fear
than doubt a future life, a long-continued metempsychosis ;
and as to a final annihilation of the true Self, that would
sound to Indian ears as a contradiction in itself. There
are scholars so surprised at this unwavering belief in a
future and an eternal life among the people of India, that
they have actually tried to trace it back to a belief sup-
posed to be universal among savages who thought that
man left a ghost behind who might assume the body of an
animal or even the shape of a tree. This is a mere fancy,
and though it cannot of course be disproved, it does not
thereby acquire any right to oui? consideration. Besides,
why should the Aryas have had to learn lessons from
savages, as they at one time were no doubt savages them-
selves, and need not have forgotten the so-called wisdom
of savages as little as the $udras themselves from whom
they are supposed to have learnt it? • . .
3. Pessimism.
All Indian philosophers have been charged with pes-
simism, and in some cases such a charge may seem well
founded, but not in all. People who derived tfyeir name
for good from a word which originally meant nothing but
being or real, Sat, are not likely to have lopked upon what
is as what ought not to be. Indian philpsophers are by
no means dwelling for ever on the miseries of life. They
are not always whining and protesting that life is not
worth living. That is not their pessimism. They simply
state that they received the first impulse to philosophical
reflection from the fact that there is suffering in the world.
They evidently thought that in a perfect world suffering
had no place, that it is something anomalous, something
that ougnt at all events to be accounted for, And, if possible,
overcome. Pain, certainly, seems to be an imperfection,
and, as such, may well have caused the question why it
existed, and how it could be annihilated. But this is not
the disposition which we are accustomed to call pessimism.
Indian philosophy contains no outcry against divine injus-
tice, and 'in no way encourages suicidal expedients. They
would, in fact, be of no avail, because, according to Indian
PESSIMISM. 107
views, the same troubles and the same problems would
have to be faced again and again in another life. Con-
sidering that the aim of all Indian philosophy was the
removal 01 suffering, which was caused by nescience, and
the attainment of the highest happiness, which was pro-
duced by knowledge, we should have more right to call it
eudsemonistic than pessimistic.
It is interesting, however, to observe the unanimity with
which the principal systems of philosophy in India, nay
some of their religious systems also, start from the conviq-
tion ' that the world is full of suffering, and that this
suffering should be accounted for and removed. This
seems to have been one of the principal impulses, if n'ot
the principal impulse to philosophical thought in India.
If we begin with traimini, we cannot expect much real
philosophy from his Purva-Mimamsa, which is chiefly con-
cerned with ceremonial questions, such as sacrifices, &c.
But though these sacrifices are represented as being the
means of a certain kind of beatitude, and so far as serving
to diminish or extinguish the ordinary afflictions of men,
they were never supposed to secure the highest .beatitude
for which all the other philosophers were striving. The
Uttara-Mimamsa and all the other philosophies take much
higher ground. BadarayaTia teaches that the cause of all
evil is Avidya or nescience, and that it is the object of his
philosophy to remove that nescience by moans of science
( Vidya), and thus to bring about that true knowledge of
Brahman, which is also the highest bliss (Taitt. Up. II, i).
The*Samkhya-philosophy, at least such as we know it
from the Karikas and the Sutras, not however the Tattva-
samasa, begins at once with the recognition of the existence
of the three kinds of suffering, and proclaims as its highest
object the complete cessation of all pain ; while the Yoga
philosophers, after pointing out the way to meditative
absorption (Samadhi), declare that this is the best means of
escaping from all earthly troubles (II, 2), and, in the end,
of reaching Kaivalya or perfect freedom. The Vaiseshika
promises to its followers knowledge of truth, and through
it final cessation of all pain ; and even Gotama's philosophy
of logic holds out in its first Sutra complete blessedness
IO8 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
(Apavarga) as its highest reward, which is obtained by the
complete destruction of all pain by means of logic. That
Buddha's religion had the same origin, a clear perception
of human suffering and its causes, and had the same object,
the annihilation of DuAkha or suffering (Nirvana), is too
well known to require further elucidation, but it should
be remembered that other systems also have one and the
same name for the state to which they aspire, whether
Nirvana or Du/tkhanta, i. e. end of Du&kha, pain.
If therefore all Indian philosophy professes its ability to
remove pain, it can hardly be called pessimistic in the
ordinary sense of the word. Even physical pain, though
it cannot be removed from the body, ceases to affect the
soul, as soon as the Self has fully -realised its aloofness
from the body, while all mental pain, being traced back to
our worldly attachments, would vanish by freeing our-
selves from the desires which cause these attachments.
The cause of all suffering having been discovered in our-
selves, in our works and thoughts, whether in this or in
a previous existence, all clamour against divine injustice is
silenced at once. We are what we have made ourselves,
we suffer what, we have done, we reap what we have sown,
and it is the sowing of good seed, though without any hope
of a rich harvest, that is represented as the chief purpose
of a philosopher's life on earth.
Besides this conviction that all suffering can be removed
by an insight into its nature and origin, there are some
other ideas which must be traced back to that rich treasury
of thought which was open to every thinking man in India.
These common ideas assumed, no doubt, different guises in
different systems, but this ought not to deceive us, and a
little reflection allows us to perceive their common source.
Thus, when the cause of suffering is inquired for, they all
have but one answer to give, though under different' names.
The Vedanta gives Avidya, nescience, the S£mkhya, Avi-
veka, non-discrimination, the Nyaya, Hithy%7i£na, false
knowledge, and these various aberrations from knowledge
are generally represented as Bandha or bondage, to be
broken again by means of that true knowledge which is
supplied by the various systems of philosophy.
109
4. Xarman.
The next idea that seems ingrained in the Indian mind,
and therefore finds expression in all the- systems of philo-
sophy, is a belief in Karman deed, that is, the continuous
working of every thought, word, and deed through all
ages. * All works, good or bad, all must bear and do bear
fruit/ is a sentiment never doubted by any Hindvi, whether
to-day or thousands of years ago l.
And the same eternity which is claimed for works and
their results is claimed for the soul also, only with this
difference, that while works will cease to work when real
freedom has been obtained, the soul itself continues after
the obtainment of freedom or final beatitude. The idea of
the soul ever coming to an end is so strange to the Indian
mind that there seemed to be no necessity for anything
like proofs of immortality, so common in European philo-
sophy. Knowing what is meant by ' to be/ the idea that
'to be' could ever become 'not to be' seems to have been
impossible to the mind of the Hindus. If by 'to be' is
meant Samsara or the world, however long it may last,
then Hindu philosophers would never look upon it as real.
It never was, it never is, and never will be. Length of
time, however enormous, is nothing in the eyes of Hindu
philosophers. To reckon a thousand years as one day would
not satisfy them. They represent length of ^ime by much
bolder similes, such as when a man once in every thousand
years passes his silken kerchief over the chain of the Hima-
layan mountains. By the time he has completely wiped
them out by this process the world or Samsara may indeed
come to an end, but even then eternity and reality lie far
beyond. In order to get an easier hold of this eternity,
the very popular idea of Pralayas, i. e. destructions or
absorptions of the whole world, has been invented. Accord-
ing to the Ved&nta there occurs at the end of each Kalpa
a Fralaya or dissolution of the universe, and Brahman is
then reduced to its causal condition (K&ran&vastha), con-
taining both soul and matter in an Avyakta (undeveloped)
1 Cf. The Mysteries of Karma, revealed by a Brahmin Yogee, Allaha-
bad, 1898.
110 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
state *. At the end of this Pralaya, however, Brahman
creates or lets out of himself a new world, matter becomes
gross and visible once more, and souls become active and
re-embodied, though with a higher enlightenment (Vik&sa),
and all this according to their previous merits and demerits.
Brahman has then cissumed its new Karyavastha or effec-
tive state which lasts for another Ealpa. But all this refers
to the world of change and unreality only. It is the world
of Karman, the temporary produce of Nescience, of Avidya,
or Maya, it is not yet real reality. In the Samkhya-
philosophy these Pralayas take place whenever the three
Qunas of Prakriti recover their equipoise 2, while creation
results from the upsetting of the equipoise between them.
What is truly eternal, is not affected by the cosmic illusion,
or at least is so for a time only, and may recover at any
moment its self-knowledge, that is, its self-being, and its
freedom from all conditions and fetters.
According to the Vaiseshikas Ihis process of creation
and dissolution depends on the atoms. If they are sepa-
rated, there ensues dissolution (Pralaya), if motion springs
up in them and they are united, there follows what we
call creation.
The idea of the reabsorption of the world at the end of
a Kalpa (aeon) and its emergence again in the next Kalpa,
does not occur as yet in the old Upanishads, nay even the
name of Sawsara is absent from them ; and Professor
Garbe is inclined therefore to claim the idea of Pralaya as
more recent, as peculiar to the S&mkhya-philosophy, and
as adopted from it by the other systems 3. It may be so,
but in the Bhagavad-gita IX, 7, the idea of Pralayas,
absorptions, and of Kalpas or ages, of their end and their
beginning (Kalpakshaye arid Kalp&dau), are already quite
familiar to the poets. The exact nature of the Pralayas
differs so much, according to different poets and philo-
sophers, that it is far more likely that they may all have
borrowed it from a common source, that is, from the
popular belief of those among whom they were brought
up and from whom they learnt their language and with it
1 Thibaut, V. S. I, p. xxviii. * S&mkhya-Stitras VI, 43.
* Sawkhya-Philosophie, p. 221
TETRBE GUtfAS. . Ill
the materials of their thoughts, than that they should
each have invented the same theory under slightly varying
aspects.
5. Infallibility of tile Veda.
One more common element presupposed by Indian philo-
sophy might be pointed out in the recognition of the
supreme authority and the revealed character ascribed to
the Veda. This, in ancient times, is certainly a startling
idea, familiar as it may sound to us at present. The
Samkhya-philosophy is supposed to have been originally
without a belief in the revealed character of the Vedas, but
it certainly speaks of Sruti (Sfttras I, 5). As long as we
know the Samkhya, it recognises the authority of the Veda,
calling it /Syabda, and appeals to ifc even in matters of minor
importance. It is important to observe that the distinction
between $ruti and SmHti, revelation and tradition, so well
known in the later phases of philosophy, is not to be found
as yet in the old Upanishads.
6. Three Chinas.
The theory of the three Giirias also, which has been
claimed as originally peculiar to the Samkhya-philosophy,
seems in its unscientific form to have been quite familiar
to most Hindu philosophers. The impulse to everything
in nature, the cause of all life and variety, is ascribed to
the three GuTias. Guna means quality, but we are warned
expressly not to take it, when it occurs in philosophy, in
the ordinary sense of quality, but rather as something
substantial by itself, so that the Gu9?as become in fact the
component constituents of nature. In the most general
sense they represent no more, than thesis, antithesis, and
something between the two, such as cold, warm, and neither
cold nor warm; good, bad, and neither good nor bad;
bright, dark, and neither bright nor dark ; and so on
through every part of physical and moral nature. Tension
between these qualities produces activity and struggle:
equilibrium leads to temporary or final rest. This mutual
tension is sometimes represented as Vishamatvam, uneven-
ness, caused by a preponderance of one of the three, as we
112 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
read, for instance, in the Maitr&yaTia Upanishad V, a :
' This world was in the beginning Tamas (darkness) indeed.
That Tamas stood in the Highest. Moved by the Highest,
it became uneven. In that form it was Ragras (obscurity).
That Ragras, when moved, became uneven, and this is the
form of Sattva (goodness). That Sattva, when moved, ran
forth as essence (Rasa)/ Here we have clearly the recog-
nised names of the three Gutias, but the Maitrayana Upani-
shad shows several S&wkhya influences, and it might
therefore be Jargued that it does not count for much, in
order to establish the general acceptance of the theory of
the GuTias, not for more, at all events, than the later Upani-
ahads or the Bhagavad-git&, in which the three Gurais are
fully recognised.
CHAPTER IV.
Ved&nta or Trttara-MiuiA?ns£.
IF now we pass on to a consideration of the six orthodox
systems of philosophy, and begin with* the Vedanta, we
have to take as our chief guides the Sutras of Badarayajia,
and the commentary of £amkara. We know little of
Badarayawa, the reputed author of the SMras. Of course
when we possess commentaries on any Sutras, we know
that the Sutras must have existed before their commen-
taries, that the Sutras of Badareayana were older therefore
than Samkara, their commentator. In India he has been
identified with Vyasa, the collector of the M^h&bh&rata,
but without sufficient evidence, nor should we gain much
by that identification, as Vyasa of the Mahabh&rata also is
hardly more than a name to -us.' Thi.$- Vy|sa is said by
$amkara, III, 3, 32, to have lived at the end of the
Dvapara and the beginning of the Kali age, and to have
had intercourse with the gods, 1. c., I, 3, 33, But though
he- calls him the author of the Mahabharata, 1. c., II, 3, 47,
$amkara, in the whole of his commentary on the Ved&nta-
Sutras, never mentions that the Vyasa of the epic was the
author of the book on which he is commenting, though he
i nentions Badarayarta as such. This convinced Windisch-
inann that Samkara himself did not consider these two
Vyasas as one and the same person, and this judgment
ought not to have been lightly disturbed. It was excus-
able in Ctflebrooke, but not after what had been said by
Windischmann, particularly when no new argument could
be produced. All we can say is that, whatever the date of
the Bhagavad-gitft is, and it is a part of the Mah&bharata,
the age of the Vedanta-Sfttras .and of Bddardyana must
have been earlier.
We may also say that B&dar&yawa himself never refers
to any work which could be assigned with any amount of
I
114 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
certainty to any time after our era. Even when Badara-
ya-na quotes the Smriti, it does not follow that $amkara is
always right when suggesting passages from the Mahabha-
rata (Bhagavad-gita), or irom Manu, for it is not too much
to say that similar passages may have occurred in other
and more ancient Smriti works also. Badafaya-na is cer-
tainly most provoking in never quoting his authorities by
name. If we could follow $amkara, Badaraya?ia would
have referred in his Sutras to Bauddhas, (ramas, Pasupatas
and Paw fearatras, to Yogins, Vaiseshikas, though not to
Naiyayikas, to Sarakhyas, and to the doctrines of (?aimini 3.
By the name of Sniti BadarayaTia; according to $amkara,
meant the following TJpanishads, Brihad-&ra?iyaka, Kh&n-
dogya, Kanaka, Kaushitaki, Aitareya, Taittiriya, Mundaka,
Prasna, $veta8vatara, and (?abala.
This must suffice to indicate the intellectual sphere in
which 'BadarayaTia moved, or was supposed to have moved,
and so far may be said to determine his chronological posi-
tion as far anterior to that of another Vyasa, who was the
father of $uka, the teacher of Gauc?apada, the teacher of
Govinda, the teacher of $amkaray and who, if >$amkara
belonged to the eighth century, might have lived in about
the sixth century or our era 2.
The literary works to which jSamkara refers in his com-
menta,ry are, according to Deusscn (System, p. 34), among
the Samhitas, that of the Rig-veda, of the Va^asaneyins.
MaitrayaTtiy'as and Taittiriyas, and Ka£&ag (nothing from
the Sama and Atharva-samhitas) ; among the Brahiria??,as,
the Aitareya, Arsheya, Shac£vimsa, Datapaths, Taittiriya,
Tar?^ya, AL Aandogya ; among the AraTiyakas, Aitareya
and Taittirfya; and among the Upanishads, Aitareya
Bnhad-araTiyaka, Isa, Katta, Kaushitaki-brahma-na, Kena,
K Aandogya, Maitrayaniya, Mut?xiaka., Prasna, $vetasvatara,
Taittiriya. These are sometimes called the old or classical
Upanishads, as being quoted by $a?>ikara, though Paimgi,
Agnirahasya, Narayaniya and" (Jabala may have to be
1 Deusscn, System dss Vod&nta, p. 24.
2 Another stemma of Vyasa, given by native writers, is Naraynwa,
Vasiah^a (Padmnbhava), tfakti, PiinX«?ara, Vy»\«a, Suka, Gaudapada,
HastAmalaka (Sishya), Troika, VArttikakftra, &c
VEDANTA OR UTTARA-MIMA3fS£. 115
added. As belonging to Snmti /Samkara quotes MaM-
bhsirata (Bhagavad-ftM), RamayaTia, M^rkarTdeya-pur^oia,
Manu, Y&ska, Pa/mm, ParibhasMs, S&wkhya-k&rik£, and he
refers to S&rakhya-Siltras (though it is important to observe
that he gives no ipsissima verba from our S&mkhya-
Sfttras), to Yoga-Sfttras, Nyaya-Sfttras, Vaiseshika-Sfttras,
and to Mim&ms£-Sfttras. When he alludes to Sugata or
Buddha he refers once to a passage which has been traced
in the Abhidharma-Kos&a-vy&khylL He also knew the
Bh&gavatas and the Svapnadhy&yavids.
Though the name of Ved&nta does not occur in the old
Upanishads, we can hardly doubt that it was the Ved&ntic
thoughts, contained in the Upanishads, which gave the first
impulse to more systematic philosophical speculations in
India. Several scholars have tried to prove that S&mkhya
ideas prevailed in India at an earlier time than the Ve-
dantie ideas. But though there certainly are germs of
Samkhya theories in the Upanishads, they are but few and
far between, while the strictly Ved&ntic concepts meet us
at every step in the hymns, the Brahma^as, the AraTi-
yakas and in the SMras. Vedanta is clearly the native
philosophy of India. It is true that this philosophy is not
yet treated systematically in the Upanishads, but neither
is the S&mkhya. To us who care only for the growth of
philosophical thought on the ancient soil of India, Ved&nta
is clearly the first growth ; and the question whether
Kapila lived before Badarayana, or whether the systematic
treatment of the S&mkhya took place before that of the
Vedanta, can hardly arise.
, I only wonder that tho?^ who maintain the priority of
the S&mkhya, have not appealed to the Lalita-vistara,
twelfth chapter, where, among the subjects known to
Buddha, are mentioned not only Nirgha^fa, /Pandas,
Ya<7/7akalpa, ffyotisha, but likewise S&mkhya, Y^ga, Vaise-
shika Vesika ( Vaidy aka?), Arthavidy£, Barhaspatya, As/carya,
Asura, Mrigapakshiruta, and Hetuvidyta (Nyayal There
are several names which are difficult to identify, out there
can be no doubt that the five philosophical systems here
mentioned were intended for S£mkhya, Yoga, Vaiseshika,
Ny&y&, and B&rhaspatya. The two Mim&Tnsas are absent,
I 2
Jl6 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
but their absence does not prove that they did not exist,
but only that they were considered too orthodox to f orm
a proper subject of study for Buddha This shows the real
character of the antagonism between Buddhism and Brah-
manism, now so often denied or minimised 1, and is con-
firmed by similar references, as when Hema/candra in his
Abhidhana mentions indeed such names as Arhatas or
Gainas, Saugatas or Buddhists, Naiyayikas, Yoga, Sam-
khya or Kapila, Vaiseshika, Barhaspatya or Nastika,
.K"arvaka or Lokayatika, but carefully omits the two really
dangerous systems, the Mimamsa of Badarayana and that
of Gaimini.
It should also be remembered that considerable doubt has
recently been" thrown on the age of the Chinese translation
of the Lalita-vistara, which seemed to enable us to assign
the original to a date at all events anterior to-7o A.D.
The case is not quite clear yet, but we must learn to be
more cautious with Chinese dates.
It has been the custom to give the name of Vedanta-
philosophy to the Uttara-Mimawsa of BadarayaTia, nor is
there any reason why that name should not be retained.
If Vedanta is used as synonymous with Upanishad, the
Uttara-Mimamsa is certainly the Vedanta-philosophy, or
a systematic treatment of the philosophical teaching of the
Upanishads. It is true, no doubt, that Vasish£Aa as well
as Gautama distinguishes between Upanishads and Ve-
dantas (XXII, 9), and the commentator to Gautama XIX, 7
states distinctly that those parts only of the AraTiyakas
which are not Upanishads are to be called Vedantas. But
there is no real harm in the received name, and we see
that the followers of the Vedanta were often called
Aupanishadas.
Badarayana.
As to BadarayaTia, the reputed author of the Vedanta-
Sfttras, we had to confess before that we know nothing
about him. He is to us a name and an intellectual power,
but nothing else. We know the date of his great commen-
tator, $arakara, in the eighth century A.D., and we know
1 See Brahmav&din, Fob., 1898, p. 454.
BADAKAYA^A. 117
that another commentator, Bodhayana, was even earlier.
We also know that Bodhay ana's commentary was followed
by Ramanu(/a. It is quite possible that Bodhayana, like
Ramanm/a, represented a more ancient and more faithful
interpretation of Badaraya?ia's Sutras, and that $amkara's
philosophy in its unflinching monism, is his own rather
than Badarayana's. But no MS. of Bodhayana has yet
been discovered.
A still more ancient commentator, Upavarsha by name,
is mentioned, and $amkara (III, 3, ,53) calls him Bhagavad
or Saint. But it must remain doubtful again whether he
can be identified with the Upavarsha, who, according to
the Katha-sarit-sagara, was the teacher of Pa/iini.
It must not be forgotten that, according to Indian tra-
dition, Badarayana, as the author of the Vedanta-Sutras, is
called Vyasa or Vedavyasa, Dvaipayana or Krishna, Dvai-
payana. Here we are once more in a labyrinth from which
it is difficult to find an exit. Vyasa or Krishna Dvaipa-
yana is the name given to the author of the Mahabharata,
and no two styles can well be more different than that of
the Vyasa of the Mahabharata and that of Vyasa, the
supposed author of the so-called Vyasa-Sutras. I think
we should remember that Vyasa, as a noun, meant no more
than compilation or arrangement, as opposed to Samasa,
conciseness or abbreviation ; so that the same story might
be recited Samasena, in an abbreviated, and Vyasena in
a complete form.
We should remember next that Vyasa is called Parasarya,
the son of Parasara and Satyavati (truthful), and that
Pa/mm mentions one P&rasarya as the author of the
Bhikshu- Sutras, while Va/caspati Misra declares that the
Bhikshu- Sfttras are the same as the Vedanta-Sutras, and
that the followers of Par&sarya were in consequence called
Parasarins. (Pa?i. IV, 3, no.)
This, if we could rely 011 it, would prove the existence of
our Sutras before the time of P.avmni, or in the fifth cen-
tury B.G This would be a most important gain for the
chronology of Indian philosophy. But if, as we are told,
Vyasa collected (Vivytasa) not only the Vedas, the Maha-
bMrata, the Puranas, but also the Vyasa-Sfttras, nay even
Il8 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
a prose commentary on Pata/7(/ali's Yoga- Sutras, we can
hardly doubt that the work ascribed to him must be taken
as the work of several people or of a literary period rather
than of one man. I formerly thought that Vyasa might
have represented the period in which the first attempts
were made to reduce the ancient mnemonic literature of
India to writing, but there is nothing in tradition to sup-
port such a view, unless we thought that Vyasa had some
connexion with Nyasa (writing). Indian tradition places
the great Vyasa between the third and fourth ages of the
present world, whatever that may mean, if translated into
our modern chronological language. If Vya-sa had really
anything to do with our Vedanta-Sutras, it would hardly
have been more than that he arranged or edited them.
His name does not occur in the Sutras themselves, while
that of Badarayaiia does, and likewise that of Badari,
a name mentioned by Gaimini also in his Purva-Mimamsa 1.
In the Bhagavad-gita, which might well be placed as con-
temporary with the Vedanta-Sutras, or somewhat later,
Vyasa is mentioned as one of the Devarshis with Asita
and Devala (X, 13), and he is called the greatest of Rishis
(X, 37). But all becomes confusion again, if we remember
that tradition makes Vyasa the author of the Mahabharata,
and therefore of the Bhagavad-git& itself, which is even
called an Upanishad.
The only passage which seems to me to settle the rela-
tive age of the Vedanta-Sutras and the Bhagavad-gita is
in XIII, 3 2, ' Hear and learn from me the Supreme Soul
(Kshetra</j7a) that has been celebrated in many ways by
Rishis in various metres, and by the words of the Brahma-
Sdtras, which are definite and furnished with reasons.1
Here the words ' Brahma - sutra-padai/t,' * the words of the
Brahma-Sutras,' seem to me to refer clearly to the recog-
nised title of the Vedanta or Brahma-Sutras. Whatever
native authorities may say to the contrary, the words
* definite arid argumentative' can refer to Sutras only.
And if it is said, on the other side, that these Brahma-
1 Colcbrookc, M. E., II, p. 354.
* Prut T. R. Amaluerkar, Priority of the Vedanta-Sutras, 1895.
BADAItAYAiVA. 119
Sutras, whesi they refer to Sinriti, refer clearly to passages
taken from the Bhagavad-gita also, and must therefore be
later, I doubt it. They never mention the name of the
Bhagavad-gita, nor do they give any ipsissima, verba from
it, and as every SrnHti presupposes a $ruti, these references
may have been meant for passages which the Bhagavad-
gtjba had ada-pted, and may have shared with other Sm?*itis.
Brahma-Sutra, on the contrary, is a distinct title, all the
more significant where it occurs, because neither the word
Sutra nor Brahma-Sftlra occurs again in any other passage
of the Gita. However, even admitting that the Brahma-
Sutras quoted from the Bhagavad-gita, as the Gita certainly
appeals to the Brahma-Sutras, this reciprocal quotation
might be accounted for. by their being contemporaneous,
as in the case of other Sutras which, as there can be no
doubt, quote one from the other, and sometimes verbatim.
As to the commentary on Pata/v^ali's Yoga-Sutras being
the work of the same Vyasa, this seenis to me altogether
out of the question. There are hundreds of people in India
who have the name of Yyasa. Nor has it ever been
positively proved that Pata/)$aii, the reputed Author of the
Yoga-Sutras, was the same person as Pata#</ali, the author
of the Mahabhashya, the great commentary on Pamni's
grammar, and on Katyayana's Yarttikas. Some scholars
have rushed at this conclusion, chiefly in order to fix the
date of the Yoga-Sutras, but this also would force us to
ascribe the most heterogeneous works to one and the same
author l.
Even the age of Pata%ali, the grammarian and author
of the Mahabhashya, seems to me by no means positively
settled. I gladly admit the plausibility of Goldstiicker's
arguments that if Pata/%ali presupposed the existence of
the Maurya-dynasty he might be placed in the third
century 13. c. I look upon the ArJfc&A, which he mentions
in the famous Maurya-passage, as having been devised by
the Mauryas for the sake of trade, as the first coins with
images of the gods, introduced by the Maurya-dynasty.
Such coins, when they- contain images of the go<is,*should
1 Both Lasscn and Garbe, Die SuMkljya-Philosophio, p. 46, seem
inclined to accept the identity of the two Pata%alia.
12O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
not, according to the grammarian, be called simply by the
names of the gods, but by a derivative name, not $iva, but
$ivaka, just as we distinguish between an Angel and an
Angelot. And I pointed out before, the very gods men-
tioned here by Pata!/#ali are the gods the images of which
do occur on the oldest Indian coins which we possess, viz.
$iva, Skanda, and Vfc&kha, the last, if taken for Kama.
As a constructive date therefore, that assigned by Gold-
stiieker to Pata/f^rali might stand, but that is very different
from* a positive date. Besides, the name of Maurya in the
MahabMshya is doubtful and does not occur again in it.
We saw before that Badarayana refers in his Sutras to
Gaimini, the author of the Piirva-Mimams^-Sutras, and that
Gaimini returns the compliment by referring to BadarayaTia
by name. B&dar&yaT&a is likewise acquainted with the
atheistical doctrines of Kapila and the atomistic theories of
KanMa, and tries to refute them. But in India this is far
from proving the later date of Badarayana. "We must
learn to look on BadarayaTia, (jaimini, Kapila, and similar
names, as simply eponymous heroes of different philo-
sophies; so that at whatever time these systems were
reduced to the form of Sfttras, certain opinions could be
called by their names. Colebrooke states, on the authority
of a scholiast to Manu and Y%;7avalkya, that the instruc-
tions of a teacher were often reduced to writing by his
pupils, and that this would account for the fact that the
author of a system is often quoted in the third person in
his own book. It would be interesting if this could be
established with reference to ancient texts, but I remember
nothing of the kind. All this is very discouraging to
students accustomed to chronological accuracy, but it has
always seemed to me far better to acknowledge our poverty
and the utter absence of historical dates in the literary
history of India, than to build up systems after systems
which collapse at the first breath of criticism or scepticism.
When I speak of a chronology of thought, what I mean
is that there is a chronology which enables us to distinguish
a period of Vedic thought, subdivided into three periods of
Mantras, Brahmarcas, and Upanishads. No^ one would
doubt the succession of these three periods of language, but
FUNDAMENTAL DOCTBINES OF THE VfiDAKTA. 121
if some scholars desire to extend each period to thousands of
years, I can only wish them success. I confess I do not
share the idea that we should claim for Indian "literature
as remote an antiquity as possible. The same attempts
were made before, but nothing was gained by them, and
much was lost as soon as more sober and critical ideas-
began to prevail. After the Upanishad-period would follow
that of Buddhism, marked, on the Buddhist side, by the
Suttas, on the Brahmanic side, and possibly somewhat
earlier, by the large mass of Sutra literature. To that
period seem to me to belong, by similarity of thought, if
not of style, the six systems of philosophy. I should havq
said by style also, because the earliest form in which we
possess these systems is that of Sutras. Unfortunately we
know now how easily even that very peculiar style can be,
and in case of the S&mkhya and some of the legal Smritis,
has been imitated. We must not therefore ascribe too
much weight to this. The next period would be what
I have called that of the Renaissance, beginning at a time
when Sanskrit had ceased to be the language spoken by
the people, though it continued, as it has to the present
day, to be cultivated by the learned.
Such are the difficulties that meet us when we attempt
to introduce anything like chronological order into the
literature of India, and it seems to me far better to state
them honestly than to disguise them. After all, the im-
portance of that literature, and more particularly of its
philosophical portion, is quite independent of age. It has
something to teach us quite apart from the names and
dates of its authors ; and grateful as we should feel for any
real light that can be thrown on these chronological mazes,
we must not forget that the highest interest of the Vedanta
and the other philosophies is not their age, but their truth.
Fundamental Doctrines of the Vedanta.
If we ask for the fundamental doctrines of the Vedanta,
the Hindus themselves have helped us and given us in
a few words what they themselves consider as the quint-
essence of that system of thought. I quoted these words at
the end of my ' Three Lectures on the Vedanta7 (1894): —
122 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
' In one half verse I shall tell you what has been taught
in thousands of volumes: Brahman is true, the world is
false, the soul is Brahman and nothing else1.'
And again:—
1 There is nothing worth gaining, there is nothing worth
enjoying, there is nothing worth knowing but Brahman
alone, for he who knows Brahman, is Brahman/
This resume of the Vedanta is very true, and very helpful
as a reswme of that system of philosophy. After all we
must distinguish in every philosophy its fundamental
doctrines aiid its minute details. We can never carry al]
these details in our memory, but we may always have
present before our mind the general structure of a great
system of thought and its salient points, whether it be the
philosophy of Kant or of -Plato or of B&dar^ya/fta. It
would be quite impossible in a historical sketch^ of the six
Indian philosophical systems to give all their details. They
are often unimportant, and may easily be gathered from
the texts themselves, such as we have them in the original
or in translations ; but they must not be allowed to crowd
and to obscure that general view of the six systems which
alone is meant to be given in these pages.
We have another and still shorter abstract of Athe Vedanta
in the famous words addressed by Udclalaka Armti to his
son & vetaketu (Kh&nd. Up. VI, 8), namely, ' Tat tvam asi/
'Thou art That.' These words, however, convey little
meaning without the context in which they occur, that is
to say, unless we know what is meant by the Tat, that, and
by the Tvam, thou. The Tat is what we saw shadowed forth
in the Upanishads as the^ Brahman, as the cause of the
world, the Tvain is the Atrium, the Self in its various
meanings, from the ordinary I to the divine Soul or Self,
recognised in man ; and it is the highest aim of the Vediinta
to show that these two are in reality one^. This fearless
synthesis, embodied in the simple words Tat tvam asi,
seems to me the boldest and truest synthesis in the whole
history of philosophy. Even Kant, who clearly recognised
the Tat or it, that is the Ding an sick behind the objective
1 See also Thoosophy, p. 3i7:
'* Mumfukyu Up. II, Ayum Atina Brahma.
FUNDAMENTAL DOCTIUNES 01<' T11E VEDAMTA. 123
world, never went far enough to recognise the identity of
the Tat, the objective Ding an sick, and the Tvam, the
Ding an sick on the subjective side of the world. Among
ourselves such a synthesis of the subjective with the objec-
tive Self would even now rouse the strongest theological.
if not philosophical, protests, whereas the theologians of
India discuss it with perfect equanimity, and see in it the
truest solution of the riddle of the world. In order fully
to understand it, we must try to place ourselves firmly on
the standpoint of the Vedanta philosophers, forgetting all
our own inherited theological misgivings. Their idea of
the Supreme Cause of the universe went far beyond what
is meant by God, tiie creator and ruier of the world
(Pra^apati). That being was to them a manifestation only
of the Supreme Cause or Brahman, it was Brahman as
phenomenal, and it followed that, as Brahman, as they
held, was indeed the cause of everything, the All in All,
man also could be nothing but a phenomenon of Brahman.
The idea therefore that it would be blasphemy to make the
creature equal to the creator so far as their substance was
concerned, never presented itself to their minds. Their
Tat was something behind or above the purely personal
creator, it was the absolute divine essence, the Godhead,
manifested in a subjective and personal creator, and present
likewise in all its phenomenal manifestations, including
gods and men. Even their god beyond all gods (Deveshu
adhi eka/i) did not satisfy them any longer, as it did in the
hymns of the Rig-veda; and though they might have
shrunk from identifying gods and men with that personal
divine being, Pragapati, the lord of all creatures, they saw
nothing but truth in the doctrine that man in his true
nature was the same with Brahman, that he shares in the
nature of Brahman, or in the spirit of God. They saw, in
fact, that God is hardly a name that can be used for that
Supreme Brahman, the absolute Cause of the universe, and
the absolute Cause of Prar/fipati also, when taken as the
creative god. I say when taken as such, for we ought
never to forget that we have always to be satisfied with
what we take God to be (Vidyamatra), and that we can
never go beyond. Translated into the language of the
124 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
early Christian philosophers of Alexandria, this lifting up
of the Tvarn into the Tat might prove the equivalent of
the idea of divine sonship, but from the Vedanta point of
view it means real identity, real recognition of the original
divine nature of man, however much hidden and disfigured
for a time by Avidya, or ignorance, and all its consequences.
With us unfortunately such questions can hardly be dis-
cussed in a calm philosophical spirit, because theology steps
in and protests against them as irreligious and blasphemous,
just as the Jews declared it blasphemy in Christ to teach
that He was equal to God, nay that He and the Father
were one, Tat tvam asi. If properly understood, these
Vedanta teachings may, though under a strange form, bring
us very near to the earliest Christian ^philosophy, and help
us to understand it, as it was understood by the great
thinkers of Alexandria. To maintain the eternal identity
of the human and the divine is very different from arrogat-
ing divinity for humanity ; and on this point even our
philosophy may have something to learn which has often
been forgotten in modern Christianity, though it was
recognised as vital by the early fathers of the Church, the
unity of the Father and the Son, nay, of the Father and
all His sons.
The teachers of the Vedanta, while striving to resuscitate
in man the consciousness of the identity of the Tat and one
Tvam, and, though indirectly, of man and God, seem to be
moving in the most serene atmosphere of thought, and in
their stiff and algebraic Sutras they were working out
these mighty problems with unfaltering love of truth, and
in an unimpassioned and truly philosophic spirit.
It is as difficult to give an idea of the form of the
Upanishads as of the spirit that pervades the Upanishads.
A few extracts, howev.er, may help to show us the early
Vedantists as they were, groping their way in the dark.
We do not indeed get there the pure wine of the Vedanta,
but we get the grapes from which the juice was extracted
and made into wine. The first is taken from the Kh&n-
dogya Upanishad which belongs to the Sama-veda and is
generally regarded as one of the earlier Upanishads l.
1 Translated in S. B. E., I, p. 92
FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF THE V3DANTA.
FIRST KHA^DA.
I. $vetaketu was the son of Arami, the grandson of
Artma. To him his father (Uddalaka, the son of AruTia)
said : ' $vetaketu, go to school ; for there is none belong-
ing to our race, darling, who, not having studied (the Veda),
is, as it were, a Brahma- bandhu, i. e. a Brahmaiia by birth
only/
a. Having begun his apprenticeship (with a teacher) when
he was twelve years of age, $vetaketu returned to his
father, when he was twenty-four, having then studied all
the Vedas, — conceited, considering himself well-read, and
stubborn.
3. His father said to him: '/Svetaketu, as you are so
conceited, considering yourself well-read, and so stubborn,
my dear son, have you ever asked for that instruction by
which we hear what is not heard, by which we perceive
what is not perceived, by which we know what is not
known ? *
4. ' What is that instruction, Sir ? ' he asked.
The father replied : ' My dear son, as by one clod of clay
all that is made of clay is known, the difference being only
tae name, arising from speech, but the truth being that all
is clay ;
5. * And as, my dear son, by one nugget of gold all that
is made of ;gold is known, the difference being only the
name, arising from speech, but the truth being that all is
gold;
6. * And as, my dear son, by one pair of nail-scissors all
that is made of steel (K&rslmayasam) is known, the differ-
ence being only the name, arising from speech, but the
truth oeing that all is steel, — thus, my dear son, is that
instruction/
7. * The son said : ' Surely those venerable men (my
teachers) did not know that. For if they had known it,
why should they not have told it me ? Do you, Sir, there-
fore tell me that/ ' Be it so/ said the father.
SECOND '
i. ' Jn the beginning, my dear son, there was that only
126 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
which is (TO ov), one only, without a second. Others say, in
the beginning there was that only which is not (TO w ov},
one only, without a second ; and from that which is not,
that which is, was born.
2. 'But how could it be so, my dear son?5 the father
continued. « How could that which is, be born of that
which is not ? No, my dear son, only that which is, was in
the beginning, one only, without a second,
3. ' it thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It
sent forth fires'.
'That fire thought, may I be many, may I grow forth.
It sent forth water.
f And therefore whenever anybody anywhere is hot and
perspires, water is produced on him from fire alone.
4. ' Water thought, may I be many, may I grow forth.
It sent forth earth (food).
•Therefore whenever it rains anywhere, most food is
then produced. From water alone is eatable food pro-
duced.
SEVENTH KHA#DA.
1. 'Man (Purusha), my son, consists of sixteen parts.
Abstain from food for fifteen days, but drink as much
water as you like, for breath comes from water, and will
not be cut off, if you drink water/'
2. >Svetaketii abstained from food for fifteen days.
Then he came to his father and said : ' What shall I say ? '
The father said : ' Repeat the Riky Ya^us, and S&man
verses/ He replied : ' They do not occur to me, Sir/
3. The father said to him: 'As of a great lighted fire
one coal only of the size of a firefly may be left, which
would not burn much more than this (i.e. very little), thus,
my dear son, one part only of the sixteen parts (of you) is
left, and therefore with that one part you do not remember
the Vedas. Go and eat !
4. 'Then wilt thou understand me/ Then tfvetaketu
ate, and afterwards approached his father. And whatever
his father asked him, he knew it all by heart. Then his
father said to him :
5. 'As of a great lighted fire one coal of the size of
FUKDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF THE VTOANTA. 127
a firefly, if left, may be made to blaze up again by putting
grass upon it, and will thus burn more than this,
6. * Thus, my dear son, there was one part of the sixteen
parts left to you, and that, lighted up with food, burnt up,
and by it you remember now the Vedas/ After that, he
understood what his father, meant when he said : ' Mind,
my son, comes from food, breath from water, speech from
lire/ He understood what he said5 yea, he under-
stood ite
NINTH KEA#DA.
T. 'As the bees, my son, make honey by collecting
the juices of distant trees, and reduce the juice into one
form,
2. ' And as these juices have no discrimination, so that
they might say, J am the juice of this tree or that, in the
same manner, my son, all these creatures, when they have
become merged in the True (either in deep sleep or in
death), know not that they are merged in the True.
3. ' Whatever these creatures are here, whether a lion, or
a wolf, or a boar, or a worm, or a midge, or a gnat, or
a musquito, that they become again and again.
4. ' Now that which is that subtile essence, in it all that
exists has its Self. It is the Truel It is the Self, and
thou, O Svetaketu, art it/
' Please, Sir, inform me still more,' said the son.
* Be it so, my child/ the father replied.
TENTH KHAJVDA.
1. 'These rivers, my son, run, the eastern (like the
Ganga) toward the east, the western (like the Sindhu)
toward the west. They go from sea to sea (i. e. the clouds
lift up the water from the sea to the sky, and send it back
as rain to the sea). They become indeed sea. And as
those rivers, when they are in the sea, do not know, I arn
this or that 'river,
2. 'In the same manner, my son, all these creatures,
when they have come back from the True, know not that
they have come back from the True. Whatever these crea-
128 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
tures are here, whether a lion, or a wolf, or a boar, or
a worm, or a midge, or a gnat, or a musquito, that they
become again and again.
3. ' That which is that subtile essence, in it all that exists
has its Self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O
Svetaketu, art it.'
' Please, Sir, inform me still more/ said the son.
* Be it so, my child/ the father replied.
ELEVENTH KHAJVDA.
1. ' If one were to strike at the root of this large tree
here, it would bleed, but it would live. If he were to strike
at its stem, it would bleed, but it would live. If he were
to strike at its top, it would bleed, but it would live. Per-
vaded by the living Self that tree stands firm, drinking in
its nourishment and rejoicing ;
2. ' But if the life (the living Self) leaves one of its
branches, that branch withers; if it leaves a second, that
branch withers ; if it leaves a third, that branch withers.
If it leaves the whole tree, the whole tree withers. In
exactly the same manner, my son, know this.' Thus he
spoke :
3. 'This (body) indeed withers and dies 'when the living
(Self) has left it ; the living (Self) dies not.
4 That which is that subtile essence, in it all that exists
has its Self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou,
tfvetaketu, art it.'
' Please, Sir, inform me still more/ said the son.
c Be it so, my child/ the father replied.
TWELFTH KHAIVDA.
i. 'Fetch me from thence a fruit of the Nyagrodha
tree/
' Here is one, Sir/
' Break it/
' It is broken, Sir/
' What do you see there ? '
' These seeds, almost infinitesimal/
IQNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF THE V-2DANTA. 129
* Break one of them.'
1 It is broken, Sir/
' What do you see there?'
' Not anything, Sir/
2. The father said : ' My son, that subtile essence which
you do not perceive there, of that very essence this great
Nyagrodha tree exists.
3. ' Believe it, my son. That which is the subtile essence,
in it all that exists has its Self. It is the True. It is the
Self, and thou, O £vetaketu, art it/
' Please, Sir, inform me still more/ said the-son,
' Be it so, my child/ the father replied.
THIRTEENTH KHA^DA.
1. ' Place this salt in water, and then wait on me in the
morning/
The son did as he was commanded.
The father said to him ; * Bring me the salt, which you
placed in the water last night/
The son, having looked for it, found it not, for, of course,
it was melted.
2. The father said: 'Taste it from the surface of the
water. How is it ? '
The son replied : ' It is salt/
' Taste it from the middle. How is it ? '
. The son replied : ' It is salt/
' Taste it from the bottom. How is it ? '
The son replied : ' It is salt/
The father said : ' Throw it away and then wait on me/
He did so ; but the salt continued to exist.
Then the father said : ' Here a^o, in this body, indeed,
you do not perceive the True (Sat), my son; but there
indeed it is.
3. ' That which is the subtile essence, in it all that exists
has its Self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou,
O tfvetaketu, art it/
' Please, Sir, inform me still more/ said the son.
' Be it so, my child/ the father replied.
:9 K
130 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
FOURTEENTH KIUJTOA.
1. ' As one might lead a person with his eyes covered
away from the Gandharas, and leave him then in a place
where there are no human beings; and as that person
would turn towards the east, or the north, or the west, and
shout, " I have been brought here with my eyes covered,
I have been left here with my eyes covered,"
2. c And as thereupon some one might loose his bandage
and say to him, " Go in that direction, it is the Gandharas,
go in that direction ; " and as thereupon, having been in-
formed and being able to judge for himself, he would by
asking his way from village to village arrive at last at the
Gandharas, — in exactly the same manner does a man, who
meets with a teacher to inform him, learn that there is
delay so long only as " I am not delivered (from this body) ;
and then I shall be perfect/'
3. * That which is the subtile essence in it all that exists
has its Self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou,
O A^vetaketu, art it/
' Please, Sir, inform me still more/ said the son,
' Be it so, my cliild/ the father replied.
FIFTEENTH KHAATDA.
1. 'If a man is ill, his relatives assemble round him and
ask : " Dost thou know me ? Dost thou know me ? " Then,
as long as his speech is not merged in his mind, his mind
in breath, breath in heat (fire), heat in the Highest Being
(Devata), he knows them.
2. ' But when his speech is merged in his mind, his mind
in breath, breath in heat (fire), heat in the Highest Being,
then he knows them not.
' That which is the subtile essence, in it all that exists
has its Self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O
$vetaketu, art it/
' Please, Sir, inform me still more/ said the son.
' Be it so, my child/ the father replied.
The next extract is from the KatfAa Upanishad of the
F TNDAMJBNTAL DOCTRINES OF THE YZDANTA.
Ya#ur-veda, and has by many scholars been classed as of
later date.
FIRST VALL!.
i. Va^asravasa, desirous (of heavenly rewards), surren-
dered (at a sacrifice) all that he possessed. He had a son of
the name of Na&iketas.
4. He (knowing that his father had promised to give up
at a sacrifice all that he possessed, and therefore his son
also) said to his father : ' Dear father, to whom wilt thou
give me ? '
He said it a second and a third time. Then the father
replied (angrily) :
' I shall give thee unto Death/
(The father, having once said so, though iu haste, had to
be true to his word and to sacrifice his son.)
5. The son said : ' I go as the first, at the head of many
(who have still to die) ; I go in the midst of many (who
are now dying). What will be the work of Yama (the
ruler of the departed) which to-day he has to do unto me ?
6. * Look back how it was with those who came before,
look forward how it will be with those who come here-
after, A mortal ripens like corn, like corn he springs up
again/
(NaMketas then enters into the abode of Yama Vaivas-
vata, and there is no one to receive him. Thereupon one
of the attendants of Yama is supposed to say :)
7. < Fire enters into the houses, when a Brahmawa enters
as*a guest. That fire is quenched by this peace-offering; —
bring, water, O Vaivasvata !
8. 'A Brahmaria that dwells in the house of a foolish
man without receiving food to eat, destroys his hopes and
expectations, his possessions, his righteousness, his sacred
and his good deeds, and all his sons and cattle/
(Yama, returning to his house after an absence of three
nights, during which time Na&iketas had received no hos-
pitality from him, says :)
9. ' O BrahmaTia, as thou, a venerable guest, hast dwelt
in my house three nights without eating, therefore choose
now three boons. Hail to thee ! and welfare to me i '
K 2
132 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
10. Na/dketas said : ' 0 Death, as the first of tlie three
boons I choose that Gautama, my father, be pacified, kind,
and free from anger towards me ; and that he may know
me and greet me, when I shall have been dismissed by thee/
11. Yama said: 'With my leave, Audd&laki Armu, thy
father, will know thee, and be again towards thee as he
was before. He shall sleep peacefully through the night,
and free from anger, after having seen thee freed from the
jaws of death/
12. Na/dketas said: 'In the heaven- world there is no
fear ; thou art not there, O Death; and no one is afraid on
account of old age. Leaving behind both hunger and thirst,
and out of the reach of sorrow, all rejoice in the world of
heaven/
13. ' Thou knowest, O Death, the fire-sacrifice which leads
us to heaven ; tell it to me, for I am full of faith. Those
who live in the heaven-world reach immortality, — this I
ask as my second boon/
14. Yama said: 'I will tell it thee, learn it from me,
and when thou understandest that fire-sacrifice which
leads to heaven, know, O Naiiketas, that it is the attain-
ment of the eternal worlds, and their firm support, hidden
in darkness/
15. Yama then told him that fire-sacrifice, in the begin-
ning of the worlds, and whafT bricks* are required for the
altar, and how many, and how they are to be placed. And
Na/dketas repeated all as it had been told to him. Then
Mrityu, being pleased with him, said again :
19. 'This, O Nafciketas, is thy fire which leads to heaven,
and which thou hast chosen as thy second boon. That fire
all men will proclaim as thine. Choose now, O Na&iketas,
thy third boon/ '
20. NaAdketas said: 'JThere is that doubt, when a man
is dead, — some saying, he is; others, he is not. This I
should like to know, taught by thee ; this is the third of
my boons/
2,1. Death said: 'On this point even the gods have been
in doubt formerly; it is not easy to understand. That
subject is subtle. Choose another boon, O Na&iketas, do
not press me, and let me off that boon/
FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF THE VEDANTA 133
22. Na/dketas said : ' On this point even the gods have
been in doubt indeed, and thou, Death, hast declared it
to be not easy to understand, and another teacher like
thee is not to be found :• — surely no other boon is like unto
this/
23. Death said : c Choose sons and grandsons who shall
live a hundred years, herds of cattle, elephants, gold, and
horses. Choose the wide abode of the earth, and live
thyself as many harvests as thou desirest.'
24. ' If thou canst think of any boon equal to that, choose
wealth, and long life. Be (king), Na&iketas, on the wide
earth. I make thee the enjoy er of all desires/
25. 'Whatever desires are difficult to attain among
mortals, ask for them according to thy wish; — these fair
maidens with their chariots and musical instruments, —
such are indeed not to be obtained by men, — be waited
on by them whom I give to thee, but do not ask me about
dying/
26. Na&iketas said : ' Thoughts of to-morrow, O Death,
wear out the present vigour of all the senses of man. Even
the whole of life is short. Keep thou thy horses, keep
dance and song for thyself/
27. 'No man can be made happy through wealth. Shall
we have wealth, when we see thee ? Let us live, as long
as thou rulest? Only that boon (which I have chosen) is
to be chosen by me/
28. ' What mortal, slowly decaying here below, and
knowing, after having approached them, the freedom from
decay enjoyed by the immortals, would delight in a long
life, after he has pondered on the pleasures which arise
from beauty and love ? '
29. ' No, that on which there is this doubt, O Death, tell
us what there is in that great. Hereafter. Na&iketas does
not choose another boon but that which enters into what
is hidden/
SECOND VALL!
j. Death said: 'The good is one thing, the pleasant
another ; these two, having different objects, chain a man.
134 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
It is well with him who clings to the good ; he who
chooses the pleasant, misses his end/
3. ' The good and the pleasant approach man : the wise
goes round about them and distinguishes them. Yea, the
wise prefers the good to the pleasant, but the fool chooses
the pleasant through greed and avarice/
3. 'Thou,0 Na&iketas, after pondering all pleasures that
are or seem delightful, hast dismissed them all. Thou hast
not gone into the road that leadeth to wealth, in which
many men perish/
4. ' Wide apart and leading to different points are these
two, ignorance, and what is known as wisdom. I believe
NaAdketas to be one who desires knowledge, for even many
pleasures did not tear thee away/
5. 'Fools dwelling in darkness, wise in their 'own con-
ceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and
round, staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the
blind/
6. * The Hereafter never rises before the eyes of the care-
less child, deluded by the delusion of wealth. " This is the
world," he thinks, " there is no other ; " — thus he falls again
and again under iny sway/
7. * He (the Self) of whom many are not even able to
hear, whom many, even when they hear of him, do not
comprehend ; wonderful is a man, when found, who is able
to teach this (the Self) ; wonderful is he who comprehends
this, when taught by an able teacher/
9. 'That doctrine is not to be obtained by argument, but
when it is declared by another, then, O dearest, it is easy
to understand. Thou hast obtained it now ; thou art truly
a man of true resolve. May we have always an inquirer
like thee!'
10. Na&iketas said : 'I know that what is called treasure
is transient, for the eternal is not obtained by things
which are not eternal. Hence the Na/ciketa fire-sacrifice
has been laid by me first; then, by means of transient
things, I have obtained what is not transient (the teaching
of Yama)/
11. Yaina said: 'Though thou hadst seen the fulfilment
of all desires, the foundation of the world, the endless
FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OP THE YEDANTA 135
rewards of good deeds, the shore where there is no fear,
that which is magnified by praise, the wide abode, the
rest, yet being wise thou hast with firm resolve dismissed
it all/
1 2. ' The wise who, by means of meditation on his Self,
recognises the Ancient, who is difficult to be seen, who has
entered into darkness, who is hidden in the cave, who
dwells in the abyss, as God, he indeed leaves joy and sorrow
far behind/
13. * A mortal who has heard this and embraced it, who
has removed from it all qualities, and has thus reached
that subtle Being, rejoices, because he has obtained what is
a cause for rejoicing. The house (of Brahman) is open,
I believe, O Na&iketas/
1 8. ' The knowing Self is not born, it dies not ; it sprang
from nothing, nothing sprang from it. The Ancient is
unborn, eternal, everlasting; he is not killed, though the
body is killed/
19. 'If the killer thinks that he kills, if the killed thinks
that he is killed, they do not understand ; for this one does
not kill, nor is that one killed/
2,0. ( The Self, smaller than small, greater than great, is
hidden in the heart of the creature. A man who is free
from desires and free from grief, sees the majesty of the
Self by the grace of the Creator (or through the serenity
of the elements)/
31. * Though sitting still, he walks far; though lying
down, he goes everywhere. Who, save myself, is able to
know that God, who rejoices and rejoices noil '
22. ' The wise who knows the Self as bodiless within the
bodies, as unchanging among changing things, as great and
omnipresent, he never grieves/
23. 'That Self cannot be gained by the Veda, nor by
understanding, nor by much learning. He whom the Self
chooses, by him the Self can be gained. The Self chooses
him (his body) as his own/
24. ' But he who has not first turned away from his
wickedness, who is not tranquil, and subdued, or whose
mind is not at rest, he can never obtain the Self (even) by
knowledge/
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
THIRD VALL!
1. 'There are the two, drinking their reward in the
world of their own works, entered into the cave (of the
heart), dwelling on the highest summit (the ether in
the heart). Those who know Brahman call them shade
and light; likewise, those householders who perform the
TriTi^iketa sacrifice.'
2. * May we be able to master that Na&iketa rite which
is a bridge for sacrificers ; which is the highest, imperish-
able Brahman for those who wish to cross over to the
fearless shore/
3. ' Know the Self to be sitting in the chariot, the body
to be the chariot, the intellect (buddhi) the charioteer, and
the inind the reins/
4. 'The senses they call the horses, the objects of the
senses their roads. When he (the Highest Self) is in union
with the body, the senses, and the mind, then wise people
call him the Enjoy er/
5. ' He who has no understanding and whose mind (the
reins) is never firmly held, his senses (horses) are unman-
ageable, like vicious horses of a charioteer/
6. ' But he who has understanding and whose mind is
always firmly held, his senses are under control, like good
horses of a charioteer/
7. ' He who has no understanding, who is unmindful and
always impure, never reaches that place, but enters into the
round of births/
8. * But he who has understanding, who is mindful and
always pure, reaches indeed that place, from whence he is
not born again/
9. 'But he who has understanding for his charioteer,
and who holds the reins of the mind, he reaches the end
of his journey, and that is the highest place (step) of
Vishnu/
10. ' Beyond the senses there are the objects, beyond the
objects there is the mind, beyond the mind there is the
intellect, the Great Self is beyond the intellect/
ii.' Beyond the Great there is the Undeveloped, beyond
the Undeveloped there is the Person '(Purusha). Beyond
TRANSLATION OF THE UPANISHAOS. 137
the Person there is nothing — this is the goal, the furthest
road/
12. 'ifhat Self is hidden in all beings and does not shine
forth, but it is seen by subtle seers through their sharp and
subtle intellect/
13. 'A wise man should keep down speech and mind ; he
should keep them within the Self which is knowledge;
he should keep knowledge within the Self which is the
Great ; and he should keep that (the Great) within the Self
which is the Quiet/
14. 'Rise, awake! having obtained your boons, under-
stand them ! The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass
over ; difficult is the path (to the Self) ; the wise tell it/ «
15. ' He who h£S perceived that which is without sound,
without touch, without form, without decay, without taste,
eternal, without smell, without beginning, without end,
beyond the Great, and unchangeable, is freed from the jaws
of death/
Translation of the Upaniahads.
May I be allowed to say here a few words with regard
to my translation. Those who know my translation of the
Upanishads, published in 1879 and 18(84, will easily see that
I have altered it in several places. But I do not wish it to
be understood that I consider my translation even now as
quite free from doubt. » Our best scholars know how far we
are still from a perfect understanding of the Upanishads.
When therefore, in 1879, I undertook a translation of all
the more important Upanishads, all I could hope for was
to give a better translation than what we had before.
Though I was well aware of the difficulties of such an
undertaking, I knew that I could count on the same in-
dulgence which is always granted to a first attempt at
translating, nay, often, as in our case, at guessing and
deciphering an ancient text. Nor have I been at all con-
vinced that I was wrong in following a text, such as it is
presupposed by the commentaries of $a??ikara, instead of
introducing conjectural emendations; however obvious they
seem to be. Scholars should learn that the more obvious
their emendations are, the more difficult it becomes to
138 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
account for the introduction of such palpable corruptions
into an ancient text, such as it was at the time of &amkara,
My determination also, whenever it was impossible to dis-
cover a satisfactory meaning, to be satisfied with /Samkara's
interpretations, who after all lived a thousand years ago,
may be criticised, and I never represented it as more than
a pis aller. Besides that, all the translators of the S. B. E.
had to make a sacrifice in giving what they could give at
the time, without waiting for the ninth year. Though
I have hardly ever referred to the mistakes made by earlier
translators of the Upanishads, but have simply corrected
them, anybody who will take the trouble to compare them
with my own will find a good harvest of them, as those
who come after me will no doubt glean many a stray ear
even in a field which so many mowers have mowed. But
the work of the children who glean some ears is very
different from that of the mower who has to mow a whole
field alone. Such a work as Colonel Jacob's Concordance
of the Principal Upanishads and the Bhagavad-gita, pub-
lished in 1891, has placed at the disposal of all Vedantic
students what may almost be called a mowing machine in
place of a sickle; and the careful and brilliant translation
of the Sixty Upanishads published by Professor Deussen,
in 1897, shows what an immense jadvance has been made
with its help. I have adopted many emendations, in the
extracts given above, from Professor Deussen's work, and
when my translations differ from his, all I can say is that
I always differ most reluctantly from one who has devoted
so many years to Vedantic studies, and whose mind is so
thoroughly imbued with Vedantic ideas. If we could
always know at what time each Upanishad was finally
settled and reduced to writing, whether before or after the
time when the Vediinta and Stt9?ikhya-philosophy assumed
each its own independent and systematic form, our task
would be much lightened. Whenever we come across such
words as Atrnan and Brahman we suspect Vedantic in-
fluences, whereas Purusha and Prakriti at once remind us
of Samkhya doctrines. But Atman is by no means un-
known to early S&mkhya philosophers, nor is Purusha
entirely outside the Vedantic horizon. To say, therefore.
CHARACTER OF THE UPANISHAL3. 1.39
that Purusha must always be taken in the technical
Samkhya sense, and Atman in that of the Vedanta, is
going too far, at least at present. We go still further out
of our depth if we maintain, with regard to the Ka£Aa
Upanishad, for instance, that there was a time when it
consisted of one chapter and three Vallis only. It may
have been so, and who shall prove that it was not so ?
But on the other hand, what do we know of the compilers
of the Upanishads to enable us to speak so positively on
such a subject? Everybody can see that there was a divi-
sion at III, 13, or 1 6, or 17. The technical repetition of
certain words in IV, 17 might indicate that the Upanishad
originally ended there, and that V, 18 is later. Anybody
can see also that the second Adhyaya differs in spirit from
the first. The name of Na/dketas, for instance, is never
mentioned in the second chapter, except in the last and
probably spurious or additional verse, and then it appears
as N&fciketa, as derived from NaHketa, not from the old
form Na/ciketas. We may easily discover a different spirit
in the third, as compared with the first and second Valli.
In fact, there is still plenty of work left for those who
come after us, for with all that has been achieved we are
on the threshold only of a truly historical study of Indian
philosophy and literature. Here, also, we are still like
children playing on the sea-shore and finding now and
then a pebble or a shell, whilst the great ocean of that
ancient literature lies before us undiscovered and unex-
plored.
Character of the Upanishads.
Such utterances as I have here quoted from the Upani-
shads will hardly seem worthy of the name of philosophy.
It would have been almost impossible to describe them so
as to give a clear idea of what the Upanishads really are.
With us philosophy always means something systematic,
while what we find here are philosophic rhapsodies rather
than consecutive treatises. But that is the very reason
why the Upanishads are so interesting to the historical
student. Nowhere, except in India, can we watch that
period of chaotic thought, half poetical, half religious,
140 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
which preceded, in India at least, the age of philosophy,
properly so called. Possibly, if we knew more of the utter-
ances of such men as Heraclitus or Epimenides in Greece,
they might show some likeness to the outpourings of the
authors of the Upanishads. What is quite clear, however,
is that the systematic philosophy of India would be per-
fectly unintelligible without the previous chapter of the
Upanishads. And however unsystematic these relics of
the childhood of philosophy may seem, there is really more
system in them than appears at first sight. They contain
a number even of technical terms which show that the
Upanishads did not spring up in one day, and that there
must have been a good deal of philosophical controversy
during the age that is recorded to us in the Upanishads.
If /Svetaketu is represented as attending the schools of
famous teachers till he is twenty-four years of age, and is
then only learning from his father the highest wisdom, we
see that that highest wisdom had already been fully elabo-
rated in the formula of ' Tat tvam asi,' ' Thou art that/ that
is, thou, man, art not different from that divine nature which
pervades the whole world, as salt pervades the sea. You
cannot see it, you cannot handle it, but you can taste it and
know that, though invisible, it is there. That divine essence,
that which is alone true and real in this unreal or pheno-
menal world, is present likewise, though invisible, as the
germ of life in the smallest seed, and without it there would
be no seed, no fruit, no tree, as without God there would
be no world. That this ancient wisdom should be so often
mixed up with what seems to us childish and absurd, is as
true as it is difficult to explain, but we must remember that
a long continued oral tradition must naturally leave 'a wide
door open to additions of every kind.
Whatever we may think of these Upanishads, it cannot
be doubted that they represent the soil which contained
the seeds of philosophy which sprang up and had their full
growth in the great systems of philosophy of a later age.
Ved&nta-Sfltras.
If now we turn to these, and first of all, to the philosophy
VEDANTA-SUTRAS 141
elaborated by BadarayaTia, we find no longer rhapsodies, but
a carefully reasoned system, contained in 555 short para-
graphs, the so-called Ved&nta-Sutras. We read there in
the first Sutra and as a kind of title, ' Now then a desire
to know Brahman/ or as Deussen translates 6?i/7/<asa, ' Now
then research of Brahman/ The two words Atha and Ata/i
which, I believe, were originally no more than introductory,
and which occur again and again at the beginning of San-
skrit works, always give rise to endless and most fanciful
interpretations. If we must assign to them any special
meaning, it seems to me best to take Atha in the sense of
Now, and AtaA in the sense of Then or Therefore, implying
thereby that the student has fulfilled certain preliminary
conditions, such as Upanayana, reception by a teacher,
Vedadhyayana, learning by heart the text of the Veda,
including the TJpanishads, and that he is therefore likely
to feel a desire to understand the Veda and to know Brah-
man. It may be true also, as some commentators maintain,
that in real life the first step would have been to study the
Pftrva-Mimams&, or what is called Dharma, law, virtue, &c ;
and that only after having gained a knowledge of Dharma,
particularly of the sacrificial Dharma, would there arise
a desire to know Brahman. In that case the Mimamsa
might be looked upon as one body, the Purva-Mimamsa
forming the; first, the Uttara-MimstrasS, the second part,
and we should have to consider the practice of virtue and
the performance of sacrificial acts as a necessary prelimi-
nary to a study of the Ved&nta-philosophy, or, as it is
generally expressed, we should have to consider works as
essential for producing that purity and serenity of the
mind without which a knowledge of Brahman is impos-
sible. I confess I- doubt whether all this was present to
the mind of Badar&yaTia. He may have used Crigwasa,
wish to know, instead of ViMra, research or discussion, on
purpose, because in the true sense Brahman cannot be de-
fined or known. But although Brahman cannot be known
like all other things, by being defined as So and So, it can
be explained negatively as Not so and Not so, and can thus
be cleared from many doubts which arise from the various
utterances about it in the Upanishads. When we read
142 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
however, that food is Brahman l, that Manas is Brahman 2,
that Vi#/7ana is Brahman 3, that the sun is Brahman 4, nay
that NarayaTia is Brahman 5, there is surely room enough
for trying to determine what Brahman really is, or at least
what he or it was to Badarayana and his predecessors.
The best answer, however, to all these questions is that
given in the next Sutra, •' That from which the origin frc.
(origin, subsistence, and dissolution) of this world proceed V
The full sense of this Sutra, according to the commentator,
is : ' That omniscient, omnipotent cause from which proceed
the origin, subsistence and dissolution of the world, which
world is differentiated by names and forms, contains many
agents and enjoyers, and is the abode of fruits or effects,
caused by vformer actions, these fruits having their definite
places, times and causes, and the nature of whose arrange-
ment cannot be conceived by the mind — that cause is
Brahman/
If it be asked, how this is known, the commentator in-
sists very strongly that such knowledge is not to be gained
by sense perception or by inference, but simply by the Veda
(Upanishads), passages of which have been collected and
properly arranged in the Sfitras. If in some places he
admits as a second source of knowledge Sakshatkara, or
manifestation, that can only be meant for intuition, but,
strictly speaking, such intuition also presupposes a previous
working of the organs of sensuous perception, while the
object of such Sakshatkara, i.e. Brahman, can at first be
supplied by the Veda only. In support therefore of our
Sfttra which is intended to give a general idea of Brahman,
a passage is quoted from the Taitt. Up. Ill, i, where Varuna
explains to his son that 'that frprn which these beings are
born, that by which, when born, they live, that into which
at their death they re-enter, try to know that, that is
Brahman/
J£Mnd. Up. VII, 7, 9, a ; Brih. Ar. V, la, I.
X/iand. Up. Ill, 18, i ; VII, 3, a ; Brih. Ar. IV, i, 6.
tfMnd. Up. VII, 7, a.
Kh&nd. Up. Ill, 19, i ; Brih. Up. II, i, a.
Mahan&r. Up. XI, 4.
The words which actually occur in the Sutra are printed in italics,
to give an idea of the enigmatical style of the Sutras, and their utter
uselessness without a commentary.
APPEALS TO THE VEDA. PRAMAJV.\S. 143
Appeals to the Veda.
And here we should mark a curious feature of orthodox
Indian philosophy. Though the Vedanta appeals to the.
Veda, it appeals to it, not as having itself grown out of it
or as belonging to it, but rather as an independent witness,
looking back to it for sanction and confirmation. The same
applies, though in a less degree, to other systems also.
They all speak as if they had for several generations ela-
borated their doctrines independently, and, after they had
done so, they seem to come back to get the approval of the
Veda, or to establish their conformity with the Veda, as
the recognised highest authority. This shows that a cer-
tain time must have elapsed after the final redaction of the
Upanishads and the return, as it were, of their offspring,
the StHras, to their original home. How this came about,
we cannot tell, because we have no historical documents,
but that there had been something very important inter-
vening between the old Upanishads and the first attempts
at systematising Vedanta and Samkhya doctrines in the
form of Sutras is very clear by the manner in which the
Sutras appeal to the Veda. This constant appeal to
the Veda as the highest authority was justified by the
most elaborate arguments, as part of the question, How do
we know ? a question which forms an essential preliminary
to all philosophy in India.
Pramanas.
We saw how the jfiT&rvakas admitted but one source of
knowledge, the evidence of the senses, excluding all others.
How they defended that sensuous knowledge against the
uncertainties inherent in it, we do not know, because we
do not possess those S&tras. But it is characteristic of the
Vedanta-Sfttras, that they pay much smaller attention to
the Pram-mas, the sources and authorities of knowledge,
than the other systems. These questions of Prama7*a are
often referred to in the commentaries, but not so much in
the text. Pramawa is originally the instrument of measur-
ing, from Ma, to measure, and Pra, forth. It may be
translated by measure, standard, authority, and survives
in the modern Persian Ferm&n, an authoritative order.
144 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Prama??as according to the Sawkhya.
The PramstTia which serves as a means (S&dhana) of
determining, produces Pramiti, accurate knowledge, just as
a SMhana (means) produces Siddhi, truth or certainty.
When we come to the Samkhya, we shall find there a very
full and perhaps the oldest description of the three essen-
tial Pramawas, viz, Pratyaksha, Anumana, and $abda.
The first PramaTta, Pratyaksha,, is what we mean by
sensuous perception, though it is also used in the sense of
what can be perceived by the senses, the Drishta,, i.e.
what is seen. It is explained (SUmkhya-Sfttra I, 89) as
cognition which arises from contact (with objects) and
represents their form.
Pratyaksha,
It is generally explained by Indriyartha-samnikarsha,
contact of the senses and their respective objects, and is
said to involve really three stages, contact of the sense-
organ with its object, and at the same time union of the
sense with Manas, mind, and union of Manas, mind, witli
Atman, Self. There is a distinction made between two
kinds of Pratyaksha, called Savikalpa and Nirvikalpa,
with doubt and without doubt. The former seems to con-
sist in our seeing an object, and then declaring that it is
this or thai ; the latter in simply accepting a thing such as
it is, without any previous idea of it, such as when we
awake from sleep, see a tiger, and at once run away.
Each sense working by itself, and on its own objects only,
is the Asadhara7iakara?m, the special or exclusive instru-
ment of the knowledge conveyed by it. Sound, for
instance, is heard by the ear only, and is conveyed by
Akasa or ether. But not every sound is brought
into immediate contact with the ear; it is transmitted
through the ether, as we are told, by means of waves
(Vi/dta), so that we may perceive the beating of a
distant drum, one wave propelling the other across
the vast ocean of ether, till it strikes the shore, i.e. the
ear.
ANUMANA. SABDA. 145
Amxxnflina.
The next Pramlbia is Anumana or inference, which is
explained (1. c.? I, 100) as knowledge of the* connected on
the part of one who knows the connection, or as knowledge
of something that is not perceptible, but is known as being
invariably connected (VVapya) with something else that is
perceived, as when we perceive fire (Vyapaka) from per-
ceiving smoke (Vyapta); This is a very imperfect descrip-
tion of Anumana, which will be more fully explained
hereafter, but it suffices for our present purpose. As an
illustration, we have the common i llustration that we know
the presence of fire when we see smoke, and that we know
the absence of smoke when we see no fire, always supposing
that fire has been proved to be the Vyapaka or the sine qud
non of smoke.
$abda (I, 101) or word, another Pramaw a, is explained
to be instruction given by one that can be trusted (Apto-
padesa) ; this one that can be trusted being for the Ved&n-
tists the Veda, but for the Samkhya and other systems,
any other person also endowed with authority and there-
fore considered as trustworthy. It might easily be shown
that these three Prama/rcas all go back to one, the Pra-
tyaksha, because the invariable concomitance between
smoke and fire and the like, on which the Anumana rests,
can have been established by sensuous experience only;
and the trustworthiness of any knowledge conveyed by
word must equally depend on experience, or on acquaint-
ance with the person who is or is not to be trusted.
The question is, whether this $abda, word, was originally
taken to signify the Veda such as we possess it \ I have
elsewhere given my reasons for believing that $abda had
really a far more general and more philosophical meaning,
and that it may have been intended at first for Brahman,
the Word, or for verbal knowledge as is conveyed by
a word. The Hindus knew quite well that words such as
greatness! goodness, nay, also such as animal, plant, metal,
1 Sarokhya-Philosophie, p. 154, Anm. 3. That the connection between
sound and meaning, and therefore the authority of words by themselves,
occupied the Sawkhyas, we see from Sutra V, 37.
10 L
146 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
nay, even dog or cow, convey knowledge that cannot be
gained either by perception or by inference alone, but only
by the word. The same applies to Aptava/cana, another
term for &abda, word, used in the Samkhya-philosophy,
Apta, which is explained by Yogya, can hardly be trans-
lated by aptus. It means what has been obtained or
received, and Aptavftkya or Aptavafcana need originally
have meant no more than our traditional language such
as it is, though it was explained afterwards as meaning the
word of a person worthy •. of confidence, or even of a book
believed in by the world at large. However, we must be
satisfied with what the Samkhya philosophers tell us ; and
there can be no doubt that the followers of the orthodox
Samkhya understood $abda in the sense of Veda ; though,
considering that they admitted a divine, not a human
origin of the Veda, it is difficult to understand how they
could afterwards take it in the general sense of the word
of one that can be trusted. The important question for
us to consider is what other systems of philosophy have
made of these three PramaTias. The Sfttras of all the
other systems of philosophy are well acquainted with them,
and they are even referred to by the commentators of the
Vedanta also. It seems strange at first sight, considering
that the question of the possibility of knowing, and of the
instruments of knowledge, forms the foundation of every
true system of philosophy, that the Brahma-Sfttras, though
not the later Vedanta works, should apparently have
attached so little importance to what may be called their
Critique of Pure Reason. This would seem indeed to lower
the Vedanta-philosophy to the level of all Pre- Kantian
philosophy, but a little reflection will show us that there
was in the Vedanta a sufficient excuse for this neglect.
What at first sight makes the case still worse is that while
Pratyaksha, perception, and Anumana, inference, are
ignored, the only evidence invoked by Badarayana is
$ruti or revelation, which, as we saw, was often invoked
by the modern orthodox S&mkhyas under the name of
$abda -or word. To most philosophers revelation would
seem a very weak instrument of knowledge, and one that
could never claim more than a subordinate place, even if
SABDA. 147
treated as a subdivision of Anumana or inference. But we
must remember that it is the highest object of the Vedanta
to prove that there is only one true reality, namely Brahman,
and that the manifoldness of the visible world is but the
result of that nescience which the Vedanta is meant to
destroy. It will then become intelligible why an appeal
to the evidence of the senses or to inference would have
been out of place and almost self-contradictory in the
Vedanta. The commentator admits this when he says, * If
we acquiesce in the doctrine of absolute unity (Brahman),
the ordinary means of right knowledge, perception, &c.,
become invalid, because the absence of manifoldness deprives
them of their objects/ Hoiice, a doctrine which undertakes
to prove that the manifold world, presented to us by the
senses, is unreal, could not well appeal at the same time to
the evidence of the senses, nor to inference which is founded
on it, in support of truth or right knowledge, though it may
and does readily acknowledge their importance for all the
ordinary transactions of life. Thus &amkara continues:
' So long as a person has not reached the true knowledge
of the unity of the Self, it does not enter his mind that the
world of effects, with its instruments and objects of right
knowledge and its results of actions, is untrue ; and hence,
as long as true knowledge does not present itself, there is
no reason why the ordinary course of secular and religious
activity should not go on undisturbed.'
How well BadarayaTia must have been acquainted with
the ordinary evidences of knowledge, both Pratyaksha and
Anumana, is best shown by the new meaning which he
assigns to them, applying (I, 3, 28) Pratyaksha to $ruti
(revelation) and Anumana to Smriti (tradition), the Veda
being to him self-evident, while other works, such as the
Law-books of Manu, the Mahabharata (Bhagavad-gita), nay
even the Samkhya and Yoga systems (IV, a, 21), being
Smriti, are true in so far only as they are not in opposition
to the Veda. But everything else, every kind of Tarka or
speculation, is excluded when the fundamental truths of
the Vedanta are at stake. Thus $a??ikara, II, i, u, says:
' In matters to be known from $r(uti mere reasoning is riot
to be relied on. As the thoughts of man are altogether
L 2
148 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
unfettered, reasoning, which disregards the holy texts and
rests on individual opinion only, has no proper foundation.
One sees how arguments which some clever men had ex-
cogitated with great pains, are shown by people still more
ingenious to be fallacious, and how the arguments of the
latter are refuted in their turn by other men ; so that on
account of the diversity of men's opinions, it is impossible
to accept mere reasoning as having a sure fouiidatioiL
Nor can we get over this difficulty by accepting as well
founded the reasoning of some person of recognised
eminence, whether Kapila or any one else, since we observe
that even men of the most undoubted intellectual eminence,
such as Kapila, Ka?i&da, and other founders of philosophical
schools, have contradicted each other/
This rejection of reason and reasoning, though not un-
familiar to ourselves, seems certainly strange in a philo-
sopher ; and it is not unnatural that $amkara should have
been taunted by his adversaries with using reason against
reasoning. 'You cannot/ they say, 'maintain that no
reasoning whatever is well -founded, for you yourself can
found your assertion that reasoning has no foundation on
reasoning only. Moreover, if all reasoning were unfounded,
the whole course of practical human life would have to
come to an end/ But even this does not frighten .$amkara.
As all reasoning is admittedly founded on perception and
inference, he replies, 'that although with regard to some
things reasoning is known to be well -founded, with regard
to the matter in hand there will be no escape, i.e. reasoning
cannot there escape from the charge of being ill-founded.
The true nature of the cause of the world on which final
emancipation depends cannot, on account of its excessive
abstruseness, even be thought of without the help of the
holy texts ; for it cannot become the object of perception
because it does not possess qualities such as form and the like,
and, as it is devoid of characteristic signs or qualities, it cannot
lend itself to inference and other means of right knowledge/
Here we approach a very difficult question, and have
possibly to admit a weak link in the strong chain armour
of both B&dar&yana and Sarakara. How is the supreme
authority of the Veda to be established against those who
THE MEANING 01? VEDA. . 149
doubt it ? Jt may be enough for the orthodox to say that;
the Veda is its own proof, that it is self-luminous like the
sun : but how are objections to be silenced ? The Vedanta
philosophers have no superstitions on any- other points, and
are perfectly fearless in the treatment of all other problems;
they can enter into the most subtle controversies, and yet
they are satisfied wifch the mere assertion that the Veda
wants no proof, that its authority requires no support from
elsewhere (praniaiiyam nirapeksham), that it is direct
evidence of truth, just as the light of the sun is its own
evidence of light, and at the same time the direct moans of
our knowledge of form and colour (II, i, i).
Authority of the Vedas.
But who says so? Who but a fallible mortal? It
would be hardly enough if we were to say that the Veda
was the oldest document which the Brahmaris possessed, that
it may even have been brought into India from another
country, that its very language required to be interpreted
by competent persons. All this might have helped to
invest the Veda with some kind of mysterious Character ;
but my impression has always been that this would be
taking too low a view of the Indian intellect. Veda, I hold,
was not merely the name of a text or of texts, but was ori-
ginally conceived in a far deeper sense.
T&e meaning of Veda.
We often read that Veda, is Brahman, and Brahman is
Veda, and in such passages Brahman is now generally
taken in the sense of the Samhitas and Br£hma7ias such as
we possess them. But might it not, like Aptavafcma, to
which we referred before, have meant originally knowledge
or wisdom or Sophia ; and as such a Sophia was impossible
without words, might we not here also have a faint recol-
lection of Brahman as the Word, the firsfc creation of divine
thought. After all, .Veda means originally knowledge, and
not hymns and Brahmaftas, and as such would come very
near to Wisdom or Sophia. I do not venture to speak
positively on such a subject, because there is so little of
real evidence left to which we could appeal. I give it
I5O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
simply as an idea that has presented itself to my mind as
a way out of many difficulties. To prevent all misunder-
standings I say at once that I do not entertain the idea
that such thoughts were borrowed from Greece and Alex-
andria, or had been matured during the as yet undivided
Aryan period. All I should venture to suggest is that the
idea of the Word or the Logos being the first revelation,
manifestation or creation of a Divine Power is by no means
so strange, even in a very early period of thought, as it
seems to us. People who have thought at all about what
a word is, not a mere 'sign or a means of communication,
bub an act embodying for the first time a definite idea
which came. into existence by being uttered, and afterwards
thrown forth and realised in our objective world, would
naturally, whether in Greece or in India, recognise in every
word an act of a Divine Thinker, just as in every species
they have to recognise the will of a Divine Creator. $am-
kara goes so far as to declare that the Veda is the cause
of the distinction of all the different classes and conditions
(species) of gods, animals, and men (I, I, 3, and 'Brih. Ar.
Upan. II, 4, 10). Nay he speaks still more distinctly in
I,. 3, 28: * We all know from observation/ he says, * that
any one, when setting about something which he wishes to
accomplish, first remembers the word denoting the thing,
and after that sets to work/ What should he do when
there is as yet no word to remember, but the Word, that is,
the idea, has first to be created 1 We therefore conclude
that, before the creation, the Vedic words became manifest
in the mind of Prar/apati the creator, and that after that
he created the things corresponding to these words. The
/Sruti also, when it says * uttering Bhur He created the
earth, &c./ shows that the worlds, such as the earth, &c.,
became manifest, i. e. were created, from the word Bhur,
which had become manifest in the mind (of Pragapati).
In that case the recognition by Indian thinkers of Brahman
as tho Word or -the Divine Thought, or as Veda, would by
no means be so surprising as it sounds to us at first. It
might then be Said quite truly that the >Sabda, sound, or
Brahman or Va/c or *Brih = word, was eternal, absolute,
self-luminous, self-evident, in fact all that the Veda is said
WOltK-PART AND KNOWLEDGE-PART OP THF- VEDA.
to be. Two such words as Brahman and Atman would by
themselves convey that eternal truth for which the Vedanta-
philosophy is fighting, and in support of which there is bufc..
one appeal, not to sensuous experience nor to inference,
but to the Word itself, i.e. to Brahman, or the Veda.
I know full well how entirely hypothetical, if not mystical,
this may sound to many Sanskrit scholars, but I could not
entirely suppress these thoughts, as they seem to me the
only way in which we can free our Vedanta philosophers
from the charge of childishness, for imagining that they
could establish the highest truths which are within the
reach of the human mind, on such authorities as the hymns,
the Brahma^as and even some of the Upanishads, &s we
possess them now.
Returning to the Vedanca, however, such as we know it
from the Sutras, we must be satisfied with the expressea
view of Badaraya?ia that the evidence for what the Yed&ntd
teaches is neither perception nor inference, but the Word
(/Sabda) alone, such as we find it in our manuscripts, or
rather in the oral tradition of the Veda.
Work-part and Knowledge-part of the Veda.
Of course a distinction has to be made, and has been
made by Badaraya?ta between the Knowledge-part, the
G^ana-k&ftcZa, chiefly the Upanishads, and the Karma-
karcda, the Work-part, the hymns and Brahma /ms. Both
are called Veda or $ruti, revelation, and yet the work-part
does not exist for the true philosopher, except in order to
be discarded as soon as he has understood the knowledge-
part. $arakara is bold enough to declare that the whole
Veda is useless to a man who has obtained knowledge, or
Mukti, or freedom. * Not all the Vedas together/ he says,
' are more useful to one who has obtained true knowledge
than is a small tank of water in a country flooded with
water/ A man who has neglected the Vedas and disre-
garded thu rules of the four Asramas, in fact, a man who
has lost caste, may still be allowed to study the Vedanta
as the fountain of all true knowledge, and thus become
liberated (III, 4, 36). The hymns and Brahrruuias refer in
fact to the 'phenomenal world, they presuppose the exist-
152 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
ence of a manifold creation, of an enjoyer of what is to be
enjoyed, of good works and their fruit. But all this, as we
shall see, is not real, but phenomenal; it belongs to the
realm of Avidya, Nescience, and vanishes as soon as true
wisdom or Vidya has been obtained. It is to be observed
in the world, such as it is, as a lower stage, but as essential
in leading on to a higher stage.
Vidyfl, and Avi&ya.
If then the highest truth contained in the Veda is the
Tat Tvam,Asi, that is, Thou, the Givatman, art it (the
Parawatman or Brahman), and if, as we are told, there is
but one Brahman and nothing beside it, the Vedanta philo-
sopher is at once met by the question, How then are we to
account for the manifold Thou's, the many individuals; and
the immense variety of the objective world? If the Veda
is true, our view of the world cannot be true at the same
time. It can therefore be due only to what is called
Avidya, Nescience, and it is the very object of the Vedanta-
philosophy to expel and annihilate this Avidya, and replace
it by Vidya.
Subject and Object.
This Avidyft is the next point that has to be discussed.
$amkara, in the introduction to his commentary, has some
important remarks on it 1. ' As it is well known,' he says,
* that object and subject, which fall under the concepts of
We and You (or as we should say, of the Ego arid Non-
Ego), are in their very essence opposed -to each other, like
darkness and light, and that the one can never therefore
take the place of the other, it follows further that their
attributes also can never be interchanged.' This means
that object and subject mutually exclude each other, so
that what is conceived as object can never in the same act
of thought be conceived as subject, and vice versa. We can,
for instance, never say or think : We are you, or You are
we, nor ought we ever to substitute subjective for objective
qualities. ' Therefore/ he continues, * we may conclude
that to transfer what is objective, that is what is perceived
1 Three Lectures on the Vod&nta, p. 62.
SUBJECT AND OBJECT. 153
as You or Non-ego with its qualities, to what is subjective,
that is what perceives as We, the Ego, which consists of
thought, or vice versa to transfer what is subjective to
what is objective, must be altogether wrong.' A subject
can never be anything but a subject, the object always
remains the object. * Nevertheless/ he adds, < it is a habit
in human nature (a necessity of thought, as* we might call
it), to say, combining what is true and what is false, " I afh
this/3 " this is mine, &c. This is a habit, caused by a false
apprehension^ of subject and predicate, and by not distin-
guishing one from the other, but transferring the essence
and the qualities of the one upon the other/
It is clear that $amkara here uses subject and object net
only in their simple logical sense, but that by subject he
means what is real and true, in fact the Self, while object
means with him what is unreal and phenomenal, such as the
body with its organs, and the whole visible world. In
* I am/ tiie verb has a totally different character from what
it has in ' thou art * .or * he is.' Such statements therefore
as 4 1 am strong/ or ' I am blind/ arise from a false appre-
hension which, though it is inseparable from human thought,
such as it is, has slowly to be overcome and at last to be
destroyed by the Vedanta-phiiosophy.
This distinction between subject and object in the sense
of what is real and what is phenomenal is very important,
and stamps the whole of the Vedanta-philosophy with its
own peculiar character.
It follows in fact from this fundamental distinction that
we should never predicate what is phenomenal or objective
of what is real and subjective, or what is real and subjec-
tive of what is phenomenal and objective; and it is in
causing tliis mistake that the chief power of Avidya or
Nescience consists. I should even go so far as to say that
this warning might be taken to heart by our own philo-
sophers also, for many of our own fallacies arise from the
same Avidya, and are due in the end to the attribution of
phenomenal and objective qualities to the subjective reali-
ties which we should recognise in the Divine only, and as
underlying the Human Self and the phenomenal world.
It must not be supposed, however, that the Avidya or
154 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Nescience which makes the world what we make it and
take it to be, is simply our own individual ignorance, our
being unacquainted with the truths of the Vedanta. It
should rather be looked upon as inborn in human nature,
or, from an Indian point of view, as the result of accumu-
lated thoughts and deeds before the mountains were brought
forth. It has. truly been called a general cosmical Nes-
cience, inevitable for a time, as darkness is with light. So
far as in true reality we are Brahman, our Nescience might
indeed be called the Nescience of Brahman, if for a time
only; and if we remember that it can be annihilated, we
can understand why it was said to be nought, for, according
to a general principle of the Vedanta, nothing that is real'
can ever be annihilated, so that nothing that is liable to
annihilation has a right to be called real.
The Phenomenal Reality of the World.
But it is very curious to find that though $arakara looks
upon the whole objective world as the result of Nescience,
he nevertheless allows it to be real for all practical purposes
(Vyavaharartham). Thus we read (II, i, 14), * The entire
complex of phenomenal existence is considered as true so
long as the Knowledge of Brahman and the Self of all has
not arisen, just as the phantoms of a drearn are considered
to be true until the sleeper wakes. . . .' Hence, as long as
true knowledge does not present itself, there is no reason
why the ordinary course of secular and religious activity
should not go on undisttirbed, and more particularly, why
all the commands of the Veda, even of the work-part,
should not be obeyed. .
But apart from this concession, the fundamental doctrine
of $amkara remains always the same. There is Brahman
and nothing else ; and to this Brahman as the subject,
nothing must be ascribed that is peculiar to the individual
living soul (I, 3, 19). The individual, soul is, no. doubt,
Brahman, for the simple reason that there is nothing but
Brahman, but Brahman is riot the individual soul, which in
its present state is personal, that is conditioned, and pheno-
menal. All we may predicate of that Highest Brahman is
CREATION OB CAUSATION. 155
that it is one, never changing, never in contact with any-
thing, devoid of all form, eternally pure, intelligent and
free. To ascribe anything phenomenal to that Brahman or
Atman would be the same error as to ascribe blue colour to
the colourless ether of the sky.
Creation or Causation.
If with these ideas, taken as granted, we approach the
problem of what we call the creation or the making of the
world, it is clear that creation in our sense -cannot exist
for the Vedantist. As long as creation is conceived as
a making or fashioning of matter, it does not exist for
Badarayarta; only so far as it is a calling forth out of
nothing does it approach the ideas of the Vedantist. Crea-
tion with Badaraya?ia would be nothing but the result of
Nescience, and yet Brahman is again .and again repre-
sented as the cause of the world, and not only as the
efficient, but as the material cause as well, so far as such
foreign terms can be applied to the reasoning of the Ve-
danta. Here lies our great difficulty in rendering Hindu-
philosophy intelligible. The terms used by them seem to
be the same as those which we use ourselves, and yet they
are not. It is easy to say that Kararia is cause and Karya
effect, that the created world is the effect, and that Brah-
man is the cause. But the Vedahtists have elaborated
their own theory of cause and effect. According to them
cause and effect are really the same thing looked at from
two points of view, and the effect is always supposed to
be latent in the cause. Hence, if Brahman is everything,
and nothing exists besides Brahman, the substance of the
world can be nothing, but Brahman. Divyadasa, a living
Vedantist, seems therefore to draw a quite legitimate in-
ference when he says1 that the universe with all its sins
and miseries must have existed latent in Brahman, just
as steam existed latent in water before it was heated,
though it does not become evident as vapour till tire is
brought near to water.
1 Lectures on the Vedanta, p. 24.
156 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Cause aad Effect.
This question of cause and effect and their mutual rela-
tion has occupied most of the philosophical systems of
India; and when we remember what different views of
cause and effect have beun held by some of the most
eminent philosophers of Europe, it is not surprising that
the Hindus also should have arrived at very different
results. The Vedantists stand up for Karya-kara?iabheda,
the non-difference or substantial identity of cause and effect,
and the Samkhya philosophers agree with them up to a
certain point. In the Vedanta, .11, I, 14, we read in so
many words, Tadananyatvam, that is, ' they, cause and
effect, are not other, are not different from each other/
On this, as a general principle, res£s their dogma of the
substantial identity of Brahman and the phenomenal world,
Nor does $amkara support this principle by passages from
the Veda only, but he appeals likewise to observation.
Thus he continues, II, i, 15, 'Only when a cause exists
is an effect observed to exist, not when it does riot exist.
The non-difference of the two (cause and effect) is perceived,
for instance, in an aggregate of threads, when we do not
perceive the thing which we call cloth in addition to the
threads, but merely threads running lengthways, and cross-
ways. In the threads again we perceive finer threads, and
in these again still finer threads, and so on. On this ground
we conclude that the very finest parts which we can per-
ceive are ultimately identical with, their causes, viz. red,
white, and black, these again with air, the air with ether,
and, at last, the ether with Brahman which is without
a second and the ultimate cause of the whole world. Or
again, when we look at a tree and ask what it is, when we
see through its leaves and fruits, its bark and wood, and
ask again what it is, the answer comes that it would be
nothing if it were not Brahman, that it lives through Brah-
man, that it exists through Brahman, that it would not be
at all but for Brahman. This is the real Pantheism of the
Vedanta : and strange as it may sound to us, it would not
be difficult to match it whether from our own philosophers
or our poets. Even so recent a poet as Tennyson is reported
CAUSE AND EFFECT. 157
to have said, ' Perhaps this earth and all that is in it —
storms, mountains, cataracts, the sun and the skies, are the
Almighty: in fact, such is our petty nature, we cannot
see Him, but we see His shadow, as it were, a distorted
shadow/ Is not this pure Vedanta? only that the Ve-
daritists hold that a cause, by its very nature, can never
become the object of perception, while what Tennyson calls
the distorted shadow would come very near to the Avidya
of iSawkara. The Veda has declared * that what is posterior
in time, Le. the effect, has its being, previous to its actual
beginning, in the nature of the cause/ And $arakara adds
that, even, in cases where the continued existence of the
cause (in the effect) is not perceived, as, for instance, in
the case of seeds of the fig-tree from which spring sprouts
and new trees, the term birth, as applied to the sprout,
means only that the causal substance, viz. the seed, becomes
visible by becoming a sprout through the continued accre-
tion of similar particles, while the term death means no
more than that through the secession of these particles, the
cause passes again beyond the sphere of visibility.
This problem of cause and effect in connection with the
problem of Brahman and the world was no doubt beset
with difficulties in the eyes of the Vedantists. If they
turned to the Veda, particularly to the Upanishads, there
were ever so many passages declaring that Brahman is one
and unchangeable, while in other passages the same Brah-
man is called the Creator, and from him, and not, as the
Samkhyas hold, from a second non-intelligent power, called
Prakriti, the creation, sttstentation, and reabsorption of the
world are said to proceed. If it be asked how two such
opinions can be reconciled, 6'a.mkara answers : ' Belonging
to the Self, as it were, of the omniscient Lord, there are
names and forms (Namarupa)/ These correspond very
closely to the Logoi of Greek philosophy, except that,
instead of being the ideas of a Divine Mind, they are the
figments of Nescience, not to be defined as either real
(Brahman), or as different from it. They are the germs
of the entire expanse of the phenomenal world, that is,
of whatinSruti and Snm'ti is called illusion (Maya), power
(&akti), or nature (Prakriti). Different, however, from all
158 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
this is the Omniscient Lord, and in support of this a
number of Vedic passages may be quoted, such as 'He
who is called Ether is the revealer of all forms and names ;
that wherein these forms and names are contained, that is
Brahman' (J^M-nd. Up. VIII, 14, i); Let me evolve names
and forms ' (JfAand. Up. VI, 3, 2) ; ' He, the wise one, having
defined all forms and having made their names, sits speak-
ing/ i.e. creating (Taitt. Ar. Ill, 12, 7); 'He who makes
the one seed manifold ' (/Svet. Up. VI, 12). The Lord as
creator, as Lord or tsvara, depends upon the limiting
conditions of the Upadhis of name and form, and these,
even in the Lord, are represented as products of Nescience,
not like the Logoi, creations of a Divine Wisdom. The
true Self, according to the Vedanta, is all the time free
from all conditions, free from names and forms, and for
the truly informed enlightened man the whole phenomenal
world is really non-existent.
To steer between all these rocks is no easy matter.
Brahman, though called the material cause (Upadana) of
the world, is himself immaterial, nay the world, of wnich
he is the cause, is considered as unreal /while at the same
time cause and effect are held to be identical in substance.
While the Vedantist is threatened by all these breakers,
the Samkhya philosopher is far less imperilled. He starts
with a Prakriti, a power different from Brahman, gener-
ally, though very imperfectly, translated by Nature, as the
material cause of the world. Prakriti exists, as far as
man is concerned, only so far as it is taken notice of by
man (Purusha) ; and he, the Purusha, on taking notice,
may therefore be called the efficient cause of the world,
Prakriti itself being its material cause. Otherwise Kapila
takes much the same view of the relation between cause
and effect as the Vedantist. The Karya-karanabheda, the
identity "of cause and effect, is valid as much for S&rakhya
as for Vedanta. According to both, no real effect would
be possible without the continuance of its cause. Though
different in appearance or phenomenally, both are the same
substantially. An effect is not something newly produced
or created, it is a new manifestation only, the cause being
never destroyed, but rendered invisible only. This is so
CAUSE AND EFFECT. 159
characteristic a dogma of the Samkhya that this philo-
sophy is often spoken of as the Sat-karyavada, the doctrine
that every effect pre-exists, and is the effect of something
real, while the Asat-karyavada is peculiar to Nyaya and
Vaiseshika, and strongly supported by the Buddhists.
Whether this doctrine of the identity of cause and effect was
first proclaimed by Kapila or by BadarayaTia, it is almost
impossible to settle. Professor Garbe \ who claims it for
Kapila, may be right in supposing that it would be a more
natural theorem for a follower of the Samkhya than of
the Vedanta, but this could never be used as an argument
that the Samkhya-philosophy is older in its entirety than
the Ved&nta. $amkara himself certainly gives us the im-
pression that with him the recognition of the identity
of cause and effect came first, and afterwards its religious
application, the identity of Brahman and the world. For
he says (II, i, 20), ' Thus the non-difference of the effect
from the cause is to be conceived. And therefore, as the
whole world is an effect of Brahman, and non-different
from it, the promise is fulfilled.' It is curious that Kapila
seems, almost in so many words, to guard against what
is known to us as Hume's view of causality. For in Stitra
I, 4, i, he says, £ If it were only priority, there would be no
law or hold (Niyama) between cause and effect.1
The Sat-karyavada, which might be compared with
Herbart's ftelbsterhaltung des Realen, is often illustrated
by the very popular simile of the rope which is mistaken
for a snake, but which, even in its mistaken character, has
the very real effect of frightening those who step on it.
There is more in this often-quoted simile than at first
sight appears. It is meant to show that as the rope is
to the snake, so Brahman is to the world. There is no
idea of claiming for the rope a real change into a snake,
and in the same way no real change can be claimed for
Brahman, when perceived as the world. Brahman presents
itself as the world, and apart from Brahman the world
would be simply nothing. If, therefore, Brahman is called
the material cause of the world, this is not meant in the
1 Samkhya- Philosophic, p. 232.
160 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
sense in which the clay is the material cause of a jar.
Even the apparent and illusory existence of a material
world requires a real substratum, which is Brahman, just
as the appearance of the snake in the simile requires the
real substratum of a rope. If we once see this clearly, we
shall also see that Nescience may quite as well be called
. the material cause of the world as Brahman, the fact being
that, strictly speaking, there is with the Vedantists no
matter at all; in our sense of the word.
Breaming and Waking1,
There is, however, in the Vedanta, as well as in many
other systems of philosophy, a certain ambiguity as to
what is meant by material and real. One would have
thought that philosophers, who look upon everything as
the result of Avidya or Nescience, would have denied
all reality in the highest sense to everything except Brah-
man. And so in a certain sense they do. But besides the
concession to which we alluded before, that for practical
purposes (Vyavaharartham) things may be treated as real,
whatever we may think of them in our heart of hearts,
a concession, by-the-by, which even Berkeley and Kant
would readily have allowed, there is another important
argument, It is clearly directed against Buddhist philo-
sophers who, carrying tile Vedanta principle to its extreme
consequences, held that everything is empty and unreal,
and that all we have and know are our perceptions only.
This is called the Sftnyavada (doctrine of emptiness or
vanity) or Vidyamatra (knowledge only). Although some
Vedantists have been credited with holding the same
opinion, and have actually been called Cryptobuddhists
in consequence, Samkara himself argues most strongly
against this extreme idealism. He not only allows the
reality of the objective world for practical purposes (Vya-
vaharartham), but he enters on a full argument against
the nihilism of the Buddhists. These maintain that per-
ception in dreams is oi* the same kind as all other perception,
and that the admission of the existence of external things
is therefore unnecessary. No, says jS'amkara, there is a
difference between perceiving viands and perceiving the
DREAMING AND WAKING. , l6l
satisfaction arising from eating them. He holds, therefore,
that in perceiving anything we not only perceive our per-
ceptions, but perceive something not ourselves, and not
our perceptions. He also points out that there is this
difference between dreaming and waking, that dreams on
awaking are found to be unreal. Dreams at night are
contradicted by full daylight, but. perceptions in full day-
light are not contradicted by dreams. When the Btiddhist
replies that, in spite of that, we never can be said to per-
ceive anything but perceptions, the Tedantist answers that,
though we perceive perceptions only, these perceptions are
always perceived as perceptions of something. And if the
Buddhists answer that these perceptions are illusive only,
that they are perceptions o£ things as if they were without
us, the Vedantist asks What is meant by that ' without us/
to which all things perceived by us are referred ? If our
perceptions conform to anything without us, the existence
of such perceived objects is ipso facto admitted. No one
would say that perception and what is perceived are iden-
tical ; they stand to each other in the relation of instrument
and effect, just as when we speak of an impression, we
admit something that impresses as well as something that
is impressed.
This must suffice to show what the Vedantists thought
of the difference between the real and the phenomenal, and
what was the meaning they attached to Avidy& by which
not only the individual Egos, but the whole phenomenal
World exists or seems to exist.. Creation is not real in the
highest sense in which Brahman is real, but it is real in so
far as it is phenomenal, for nothing can be phenomenal
except as the phenomenon of something that is real. No
wonder that, with all these ambiguities about .the pheno-
menally real and the, really real, different schools even in
India should have differed in their views about Avidygi,
and that European scholars also should have failed to form
a clear idea of that creative Nescience of which we can
neither say that it is or that it is not. Avidya, like all
other words, has had a history. In the Upanishads it is
often used in the simple sense of ignorance, and opposed
to Vidy&, knowledge. Both are in that sense simply sub-
11 M
1 62 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
jective. Thijs we read, jKMnd. Up. I, i, 10 : * Both perform
the sacrificial act, he who knows and he who does not
know. But there is a difference between Vidya (know-
ledge) and Avidya (nescience). For what is performed with
Vidya, with faith, and with the Upanishad, that is more
efficacious/ Or again, Brih. Ar. Up. IV, 3, 20 : ' If he feels
in a dream as if he were murdered, then, in his ignorance,
he takes that to be real whatever he fears, when awake/
Here we see that it is ignorance alone which imparts a false
character of reality to the visions of a dream. In the same
Upanishad, IV, 4, 3, a man, when dying, is said to shake
off his body and his Avidya. We are right therefore,
I believe, if historically we trace the concept of Avidya
back to the subjective ignorance of the individual, just as
we saw that the higher concept of the Self, though in the
end identical with Brahman, arose from that of the indi-
vidual personal Self , when as yet not free from the limits
of the Ego. In some of the later Upanishads this Nesci-
ence or Ignorance assumes a more independent character
and even a new name, viz. M&ya. It. is then no longer the
Nescience of the individual, but the result of that universal
Nescience, which is the cause of what we should call the
phenomenal world. Thus we read in the /Svet. Up. IV, 10 :
' Know Prakriti (nature) as Maya (magic), and the great
Lord as the May in, (magician)/ Though this is not pure
Vedanta, it shows us, at all events, the way by which the
ignorance of the individual became the cause of what we
call objective reality, and led, at the same time, to the
admission of an, active and creative Lord, the personal
Brahma or Isvara ; how Avidya in fact became a /Sakti or
potentia, somehow or other related to Brahman itself.
But before there arises this M&ya of objective nature,
belonging as it were to Brahman himself, there was the
Maya of the internal or subjective world. THis was
originally the only Maya, and, deceived by that Maya or
Avidya, the Atman, or pure Self, was covered up (Upahita)
or blinded, or conditioned by the so-called Upadhis, the
conditions or impositions, if we may say so, in both senses.
There is here again a certain ambiguity, the UpMhis being
caused by primeval Avidya, and, from another point of
DREAMING AND WAKING. 163
view, Avidya\ being caused in the individual soul (Giv&b-
man) by the UpMhis. These Upadhis are :—
1. The Mukhyapr&raa, the vital spirit; (unconscious) ;
2. the Manas, the central organ of perception, ready to
receive what is conveyed to it by the separate senses, and
to react on them by will ; Manas being that which, as we
say, perceives, feels, thinks and wills ;
3. the Indriyas, the five senses, both afferent and efferent.
The five afferent (Upalabdhi) senses are the senses of
hearing, touch, sight, taste, scent. The five efferent or
acting senses (Adhyavasaya l) are the senses of speaking,
grasping, going, evp"uat:*ng and generating ;
4. the material organic body.
To these is sometimes added —
5. The objective environment, or the objects or meanings
of the senses (Artha).
All these are not the Atman, and it is only through
Avidy& that the Atman has become identified with them.
That there is in man something that can be called Atman
or Self requires no proof, but if a proof were wanted it
would be found in the fact that no one can say, 'I am not*
(I being the disguised Atman), for he who would say so,
would himself be not, or would not be. The question then
is, What is really I or what is there real behind the 1 1 It
cannot be the body as influenced by our objective environ-
irient, for that body is perishable ; it cannot be the Indriyas
or the Manas "or the MukhyaprS/tta, for all these have
a beginning, a growth, and therefore an end. All these,
called the Upadhis, conditions, are to be treated as Not-
self ; and if it be asked why they should ever have been
treated as Self, the only possible answer is that it was
through Nescience or Avidy&, but through a Nescience
that is not only casual or individual, but universal. What
in our common language we call the Ego or Ahamk£ra
is but a product of the Manas and quite as unsubstantial
in reality as the Manas itself, the senses and the whole
body.
We can understand how this startling idealism or
1 Adhyavasftyo buddhifc, S&wkhya-Sfttras II, 13.
M 2
1 64 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
monism — for it is not nihilism, though our philosophy has no
better name for it — led to two distinct, yet closely united
view? if the world. Ail that we should call phenomenal,
comprehending the phenomena of our inward as well as
of our outward experience, was unreal ; but, as the pheno-
menal was considered impossible without the noumenal,
that is, without the real Brahman, it was in that sense real
also, that is, it exists, and can only exist, with Brahman
behind it. And this led to the admission by the strict
Advaitists or Monists of two kinds of knowledge, well
-known' under the names of Apara, the lower, and Jrar&, the
higher knowledge.
Th« Higher and th« X-ower Knowledge.
The higher knowledge consists inA the distinction and
thereby the freedom of the Self (Atman) from all its
Upadhis, and this not for this life only, but for all eter-
nity. This is the true Moksha or freedom which implies
knowledge of the identity of the Atman with Brahman,
and deliverance from birth and rebirth in the constant
evolution (Sams&ra) of the world. The lower knowledge
is likewise founded on the Veda, but chiefly on its work-
portion (Karmakanda), and teaches, not how Brahman is
to be known, but how it or he is to be worshipped in its or
his phenomenal state, that is, as a personal Lord and Crea-
tor, or even under the name of any individual deity. This
worship (Up&san&) being enjoined in many parts of the
Veda, 'is recognised as obligatory on all who have not yet
reached the highest knowledge. These are even allowed
the comfort that, in worshipping a personal god, they are
really worshipping Brahman, the true Godhead, though in
its phenomenal aspect only, and they are promised, as
a reward of their worship, • happiness on earth and in
heaven, nay by way of preparation, a slow advance (Kra-
mamukti) towards complete Moksha or freedom.
In this sense it has been truly said that $arakara did not
attack or destroy idolatry, though with him it was always
symbolism rather than idolatry. On this point which has
given rise to much controversy among the Hindus them-
THE HIGHEH AND THE LOWEE KNOWLEDGE. 165
selves, some appealing to $amkara's contempt of all ritual*
ism and Karman, others to his defence of a worship of the
popular gods, I may quote the words of a living Ved&ntist.
Divyadas Datta, in his Lectttre on Vedantism, p. 1 2. ' It
is certain/ he says, ' that $amkara was opposed to the
abuse of ritualism, and though he did not cut off all con-
nection with idolatry, he tried to introduce the right spirit
of idolatry. Idolatry in the sense of religious symbolism —
and I believe the most orthodox Hindus would take no
other view — cannot be open to objection. Symbolism there
must be, whether in words or things. Verbal symbols
appeal to the ear, and the symbols of things to the eye, and
that is all the difference between them. Verbal symbolism
is language. Who 'would object to the use of language in
religion ? But if the one is allowed, why shouid not also
the other? To my mind, idolatry, apart from its attendant
corruptions, is a religious algebra. And if verbal symbols,
without the spirit or in a corrupted spirit, are not objec-
tionable, [but are they not ?] so, and to the same extent,
formal symbols, or stocks and stones also are unobjection-
able. At one stage of its growth, idolatry is a necessity of
our nature. The tender seed of a religious spirit requires
to be carefully preserved in a soft coating of -symbols, till
it has acquired the strength to resist the nipping frost of
worldliness and scepticism. . . . When the religious spirit is
mature, symbols are either given up, or suffered to remain
from their harmlessness. . . . . Samkara did bow to idols,
sometimes as symbols of the great Infinite, sometimes as
symbols of lower orders of beings in whom he believed. . . .
These lower orders of divine beings, Brahma, Vishnu, Indra,
Yama, &c., in whom he believfed, are phenomenal, $nd subject
to creation and dissolution as much as ourselves/ &amkara
himself expresses this opinion very clearly when (I, 3, 38)
he says: 'The gods (or deities) must be* admitted to be
corporeal, and though by their divine powers they can, at
one and the same time, partake of oblations offered at
numerous sacrifices, they are still, like ourselves, subject to
birth and death/
If £a?nkara did riot dbim full freedom or Moksha for
himself, he did so, as he says, for the sake of others. * If
1 66 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
I/ he says, 'had not walked Without remission in the path
of works, others would not have followed my steps,
O Lord ! '
Is Virtue Essential to Moksha ?
Another question which has been hotly contested both
in India and in Europe is whether Moksha can be the result
of knowledge only, or whether it requires a fulfilment of
moral duties also *. Though, as far as I understand $ara-
kara, knowledge alone can in the end lead to Moksha,
virtue is certainly presupposed. It is the same question
which meets us with regard to the Buddhist Nirvana.
This also was in the beginning the result and the reward
of moral virtue, of the restraint of passions and of perfect
tranquillity of soul, such as we find it described, for instance,
in the Dhammapada ; but it soon assumed a different char-
acter, as representing freedom from all bondage and
illusion, amounting to a denial of all reality in the objec-
tive, and likewise in the subjective world. There are a few
traces left in the Upanishads, showing that virtue was-con-
sidered an essential preliminary of Moksha. In the KatKa,
TJpanishad II, i, which is generally quoted for that purpose,
we read: 'The good is one thing, the pleasant another;
these two having different objects chain a man. It is
well with him, if he clings to the good ; but he who chooses
the pleasant, misses his end. The good and the pleasant
approach a man ; the wise goes round about them and dis-
tinguishes them. Yea, the wise prefers the good to the
pleasant, but the fool chooses thp pleasant through greed
and avarice/ But even in this passage we are not told
that virtue or self-denial by itself could secure Moksha or
perfect freedom ; nay, if we only read a few lines further,
we see : ' Wide apart and leading to different points are
those two, ignorance ( Avidya) and what is known as wisdom
(Vidya).' And Na/dketas is praised because he desires
knowledge, and is not tempted away from it by pleasure.
Still less convincing are passages taken from the Bhagavad-
gita, a work which was meant to present different views
See Mokaha or the Vedantic Release, by Divyadas Datta, Journal of
the R. A. S., vol. xx, part 4.
IS VIRTUE ESSENTIAL TO MQKSFA? 167
of Moksha. All of them, no doubt, though they do not
explicitly say so, presuppose high morality on the part of
the candidate, so that Arguna is made to say for himself : —
(Janami dharmam, na &a me prav?^tti&,
(?anamy adharmam, -na Aa me mvriitih,
which has been somewhat freely translated : ' For what
I would that I do not, Lut what I hate that do I.'
That later treatises, such as the Pa/?&adast, should lay
great stress on the religious and moral side of Moksha is
tyuite compatible with what has been maintained before,
that Moksha cannot be achieved by sacrifices or by moral
conduct, but in the end by knowledge only. Hence a
prayer such as, —
' May such unchanging love as foolish people feel for
earthly pleasures never cease in my heart when I call upon
Thee ! '
— may well be uttered by worshippers of Brahma or Isvara,
but not by the true Mumukshu, \v ho is yearning for Brah-
man and true Moksha.
Even the prayer from the Brihad-araTiyaka (I, 3, 28) —
* Lead me from the unreal to the real ! Lead me from
darkness to light ! Lead me from death to immortality ! '
— refers to the lower knowledge only, and has for its
reward another world, that is, the heaven world, which
will also pass away.
It would not be difficult, no doubt, to produce passages
which declare that a sinful man cannot obtain Mqksha,
but that is very different from saying that Moksha can be
obtained by mere abstaining from sin. Good works, even
merely ceremonial works, if performed from pure motives
and without any hope of rewards, form an excellent prepa-
ration for reaching that highest knowledge which it is the
final aim of the Vedanta to impart. And thus we read :
' Brahmarcas seek to know Him by the study of the Veda,
by sacrifices, by charitable gifts' (Brih. Up. IV, 4, 22).
But when the knowledge of the highest Brahman has
once been reached or is within reach, all works, whether
good or bad, fall away. ' The fetter of the heart is broken,
1 68 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
all doubts are solved, extinguished are all his works, when
He has been beheld who is both high and low' (MuraZ.
Up. II, *, 8).
Hence, to imagine that true Moksha can be obtained by
moral conduct alone is a mistake, while there are passages
in the Upanishads to show that some Vedantists taught
that a man who had reached Brahman and the highest
knowledge, was even in this life above the distinction of
good and evil, that is, could do nothing that he considered
good and nothing that he considered evil. Dangerous as
this principle seems to be, that whosoever knows Brahman
cannot sin/ it is hardly more dangerous, if properly under-
stood, than the saying of St. John (Ep. I, v. 68), that who-
soever is born of God, sinneth not.
The Two Brahmans.
It sometimes seems as if $amkara and Badarayawa had
actually admitted not only two kinds of knowledge, but
two Brahmans also, Sagunarn and NirguTiam, with or
without qualities, but this would again apply to a state of
Nescience or Avidya only; and it is in this sense alone
that Brahman also may be said to be affected by Avidya,
nay to be produced by Avidya, not by the Avidya of single
individuals, but by an Avidya inherent in sentient nature.
The true Brahman, however, remains always Nirgunam or
unqualified, whatever we may think about him ; arid as,
with regard to Brahman, to be conceived and to be is the
same thing, so likewise, so far as we are concerned, Brahman
is conceived by us and becomes to us qualified, active, crea-
tive and personal through the deception of the same uni-
versal and inevitable Avidya. In the same way the creation
of the world and of man is not the work of Brahman, but
the result of Avidya and of man while under her sway.
This ambiguity runs through the whole of the Vedanta, at
least according to the interpretation of /Samkara.
It will be seen how small a step it was from this view
to another which looked upon Brahman itself as affected
by Avidya, nay which changed this Avidya into a >S'akti
or potent ia of Brahman, thus lowering him, not raising
THE TWO BRAHMANS. 169
him, to the character of an active creator. In full reality
Brahman is as little affected by qualities as our true Self
is by Upadhis (conditions), but the same Nescience which
clouds us for a time, clouds ipso facto Brahman also, Atman
(Crivatman) and Brahman being substantially Aone. If the
qualified Brahman makes us, we, the qualified Atman, make
Brahman, as our maker. Only we must never forget that
all this is illusion, so that in truth we can predicate nothing
of Brahman but Na, na, i. e. No, no ; he is not this, he is
not that. He is, that is all we can say* and is more than
everything else. In that sense Brahman may be called both
Sat and A sat, being and not being, being in the highest
sense, not being, as different from all that the world calfe
being or true. If in the later Upanishads Brahman is called
Safc-Add-ananda, ' being, perceiving, and blessed/ then these
three predicates are in reality but one, for *he or it could
not be without perceiving itself (esse est percipere), and he
or it could not per'ceive himself or itself except as inde-
pendent, perfect, unaffected and untrammelled by anything
else ( Advitiya). Having no qualities, this highest Brahman
cannot of course be known by predicates. It is subjective,
and not liable to any objective attributes. If it knows, it
can only know itself, like the sun that is not lighted, but
lights itself. Our knowledge of Brahman also can only
be consciousness of Brahman as our own subjective Atman
or Self.
It seems only a concession to the prejudices, or let us say,
the convictions of the people of India, that an ecstatic per-
ception of Brahman was allowed as now and then possible
in a state of trance, such as the Yogins practised in ancient,
and even in modern times, though, strictly speaking, this
perception also could only be a perception of the Atman as
identical with Brahman. The fatal mistake which in-
terpreters of the Vedanta-philosophy both in India and
Europe have made is to represent this absorption or re-
covery (Samnullianaii), accomplishment) as an approach
of the individual soul towards God. There can be no
such approach where there is identity, there can only be
recovery or restitution, a return, a becoming of the soul
of what it always has been, a revival of its true nature.
170 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Even Yoga, as we shall see, did not mean technically union,
nor Yogin a man united with God, but Yoga is effort,
towards Nirodha or suppression of Kiita, (the activity of
thought) (see Yoga-Sutras I, 2).
We shall thus understand the distinction which the Ve-
dantists and other Indian philosophers also make between
the Brahman, TO OVTMS ov, and the Brahman as Isvara, the
personal God, worshipped under different names, as creator,
preserver, and dissolver of the universe. This Isvara exists,
just as everything else exists, as phenomenally only, not as
absolutely real. Most important acts are ascribed to him,
and whatever he may appear to be, he is always Brahman,,
When personified by the power of Avidya or Nescience,
he rules the world, though it is a phenomenal world, and
determines, though he does not cause, rewards and punish-
ments. These are produced directly by the acts themselves.
But it is He through whose grace deeds are followed by
rewards, and man at last obtains true knowledge • and
Mukti, though this Mukti involves by necessity thew disap-
pearance of Isvara as a merely phenomenal god.
It must be clear to any one who has once mastered the
framework of the true Vedaiita-philosophy, as I have here
tried to explain it, that there is really but little room in
it for psychology or kosmology, nay even for ethics. The
soul and the world both belong to the realm of things
which are not real, and have little if anything to do with
the true Vedanta in its highest and truest form. This
consists in the complete surrender of all we are and know.
It rests chiefly on the tremendous synthesis of subject and
object, the identification of cause and effect, of the I and the
It. This constitutes the unique character of the Vedanta,
unique as compared with every other philosophy of the
world which has not been influenced by it, directly or in-
directly. If we have once grasped that synthesis, we know
the Vedanta. All its other teaching flows naturally from
this one fundamental doctrine ; and though its carefully
thought out and worked out details are full of interest,
they contain no thoughts, so entirely new at the time when
they were uttered, as this identity of subject and object, or
this complete absorption of the object by this subject.
PHILOSOPHY AND BELIGION, KAR.^AN.
Philosophy and Religion.
It is interesting to see how this very bold philosophy of-
the Vedanta was always not only tolerated, but encouraged
and patronised by religion and by its recognised repre-
sentatives. Nor did the Vedanta as a philosophy interfere
with popular religion; on the contrary, it accepted all
that is taught about the gods in the hymns and in the
BrahmaTi-as, and recommended a number of sacrificial and
ceremonial acts as resting on the authority of these hymns
and Brahmartas. They were even considered as a neces-
sary preliminary to higher knowledge. The creation of
the world, though not the making of it, was accepted as an
emanation from Brahman, to be followed in great periods
by a taking back of it into Brahman. The individual
souls also were supposed, at the end of each Kalpa, to Be
.drawn back into Brahman, but, unless entirely liberated,
to break forth again and again at the beginning of every
new Kalpa.
The individual souls, so far as they can claim any reality,
date, we are told, from all eternity, and not from the day
of their birth on earth. They are clothed in their Upadhis
(conditions) according to the merit or demerit which they
have acquired by their former, though long-forgotten,
acts. Here we perceive the principal moral element in the
ancient Vedanta, so far as it is meant for practical life,
and this doctrine of Karman or deed, to which we alluded
before, has remained to the present day, and has leavened
the whole of India, whether it was under the sway of
Brahmans or of Buddhists. The whole world, such as it
is, is the result of acts ; the character and fate of each man
are the result of his acts in this or in a former life, possibly
also of the acts of others. This is with them the solution
of what we venture to call the injustice of God. It is
their Theodicee. A man who suffers and suffers, as we say,
unjustly, seems to them but paying off a debt or laying up
capital for another life. A man who enjoys health and
wealth is made to feel that he is spending more than he
has earned, and that he has therefore to make up his debt
172 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
by new efforts. It cannot be by a Divine caprice that one
man is born deaf or dumb or blind, another strong and
healthy. It can be the result of former acts only, whether,
in this life, the doer of them is aware of them or not. It
is not even necessarily a punishment, it may be a reward
in disguise. It might seem sometimes as if Avidya too,
which is answerable for the whole of this phenomenal
world, had to be taken as the result of acts far back before
the beginning of all things. But this is never clearly
stated. On the contrary, this primeval Avidy£ is left
unexplained, it is not to be accounted for, as little as
Brahman can be accounted for. Like Brahman it has to
be accepted as existent ; but it differs from Brahman in
so far as it can be destroyed by Vidygt, which is the eternal
life-spring of Brahman. The merit which can be acquired
by man even in this state of Avidya is such that he may
rise even to the status of a god, though for a time only, for
at the end of a Kalpa even gods like Indra and the rest
have to begin their career afresh. In fact it might be said
with some truth that Avidy£ is the cause of everything,
except of Brahman ; but that the cause of that primeval
Avidya is beyond our powers of conception.
Brahman is Everything1.
These powers of conception are real indeed for all
practical purposes, but in the highest sense they top are
phenomenal only. They too are but Namarftpa, name and
form; and the reality that lies behind them, the Atman
that receives thorn, is Brahman and nothing else. This
might become clearer if we took Brahman for the Kantian
Ding an sick, remembering only that, according, to the
Kantian philosophy, the Kupa, the forms of intuition and
the categories of thought, though subjective, are accepted
as true, while the Vedanta treats them also as the result
of Nescience, though true for all practical purposes in this
phenomenal life. In this sense the Vedanta is more scep-
tical or critical than even Kant's critical philosophy, though
the two agree with each other again when we remember
that Kant also denies the validity of these forms of per-
ception and thought when applied to transcendent subjects.
THE STHULA- AND SUKSHMA-SARTBA. 173
According to Kant it is man who creates the world, as far
as its form (Namarftpa) is concerned; according to the
Vedanta this kind of creation is due to Avidya. And
strange as it may sound to apply that name of Avidya to
Kant's intuitions of sense and his categories of the under-
standing, there is a common element in them, though
hidden under different names. It would be natural to
suppose that this Atman within had been taken as a part
of Brahman, or as a modification of Brahman: but no.
According to &amkara the world is, as I tried to show1 on
a former occasion, the whole of Brahman in all its integrity,
and not a part only ; only, owing to Avidya, wrongly
conceived arid individualised. Here we have in fact the
Holenmerian theory of Plotinus and of Dr. Henry More,
anticipated in India. If the Atman within seems limited
like the Brahman when seen in the objective world, this is
once more due to Avidya. Brahman ought to be omni-
present, omniscient, and omnipotent ; though we know but
too well that in ourselves it is very far from all this.
The Sthflla- and StLkshma-x&rira,
These are the conditions or Upadhis which consist of
Manas, mind, Indriyas, senses, Pranas, vital spirits, and the
Sarira, body, as determined by the outward world. This
Vedantie arrangement of our organic structure and our
mental organisation is curious, but it seems to have been
more or less the common property of all Indian philoso-
phers, and supplied by the common language of the people.
What is peculiar in it is the admission of a central organ,
receiving and arranging what has been conveyed to it by
the separate organs of sensQ. We have no word corre-
sponding to it, though with proper limitations we may
continue to translate it by mens or mind. It woi^ld repre-
sent perception as uniting and arranging the great mass
of sensations, but it includes besides Upalabdhi, perception,
Adhyavasaya, determination also, so far as it depends on
a previous interaction of percepts. Heuce a man is said
to see by the mind (Manas, vovs), but he may also be said
1 Theosophy, p. 280.
I 74 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
to decide and act by the mind (Manas). All this may seem
very crude, leaving particularly the question of the change
of mere sensations into percepts (Vorstdlungen), a subject
so carefully elaborated by modern philosophers, and of per-
cepts into concepts, unapproached and unexplained. Here
the philosophy of Herbart would supply what is wanted.
He too, being opposed to the admission of various mental
faculties, is satisfied with one, the Manas, and tries to
explain all psychical phenomena whatever as the result of
the action and interaction of elementary Vorstellungen
(ideas or presentations).
By the side of the vital spirit, the Mukhya Pr&na, we
find a fivefold division into Prana, Upana, Vyana, Samana,
and Udana, meaning originally forth-, off-, through-, with-,
and out-breathing, but afterwards defined differently and
without much reference to any physiological data. This
also is a doctrine common to most systems of Indian philo-
sophy, though it is difficult to see by what physiological
observations it could have been suggested.
What is more interesting is the distinction between the
Sthftla- and Sftkshma-sarira, the coarse and the fine body,
the former the visible outward body; the latter invisible
and consisting of Mukhya Pra?ia, vital spirit, Manas, mind,
and Indriyas, organs of sense. This body is supposed to
remain after death, while the outer body is dissolved into
its material elements. The thin or subtle body, though
transparent or invisible, is nevertheless accepted as mate-
rial; and it is this Sukshma-sarfra which is supposed to
migrate after death from world to world, but, for the most
part, in an unconscious state. It is not like a human body
with arms and legs.
The Four States.
Here again we come across an original idea of Indian
philosophy, the doctrine of the four states, the state of
being awake, the state of dreaming, the state of deep and
dreamless sleep, to which is addedA as the fourth, the state
of death. In the first state the Atman is supposed to be
Krceiving and acting by means of the Manas and the
driyas. In the second the Indriyas cease to act, but
ESOHATOLOGY. 175
the Manas remains active, and the Atman, joined to the
Manas, moves through the veins of the body and sees
dreams made out of the remnants of former impressions
(Vasan&s). The third state arises from a complete separa-
tion of Atman from Manas and Indriyas. While these are
absorbed in the vital spirit, which remains in full activity,
the Atman in the heart is supposed to have for a time
become one with Brahman, but to return unchanged at the
timeAof awakening. In the fourth or disembodied state
the Atman with the Sftkshma-sarira is supposed to escape
from the heart through a vein in the head or through the
hundred veins of the body, and then to take, according to
merit and knowledge, different paths into the next life.
Escbatology.
Such fancies seem strange in systems of philosophy like
the Ved&nta ; and, with the full recognition of the limits
of human knowledge, we can hardly understand how
Vedaritists accepted this account of the Sftkshma-sarira,
the circumstances attending the departure of the soul, in
fact, a complete Eschatology, simply on the authority of
the Veda. It is taken over from the Upanishads, and that
may be the : excuse for it. Vedantists had once for all
bound themselves to accept the Upanishads as revealed
truth, and the usual result followed. But we should see
clearly that, while much may be taken over from the Veda
as due to Avidya, we are here really moving in an Avidya
within that Avidya. For practical purposes Avidya may
often be called common sense, under its well-understood
limitations, or the wisdom of the world. But these dreams
about the details of a future life are a mere phantasmagoria.
They cannot even be treated as Naisargrka, or inevitable.
They are simply Mithyag/lana, fanciful or false knowledge,
if not that which is commonly illustrated by the son of
a barren woman — that is, a self -contradictory statement —
that kind at least which is unsupported by any evidence,
such as the horn of a hare. This is really a weakness that
runs through the whole of the Vedanta, and cannot be
helped. After the supreme and superhuman authority of
the Word or of the Veda had once been recognised, a great
176 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
portion of the sacred traditions of the Vedic age, incor-
porated as they are in the hymns, the BrahmaTias, and the
Upanishads, had to be accepted with the rest, though ac-
cepted as part of the Apara Yidya, the lower knowledge
only. All the sacrificial rules, nay the very conception of
a sacrifice, had no place in the Para Vidya, or the highest
knowledge, because they involved, an actor and an enjoy er
of the fruits of such acts, and the truly enlightened man
cannot be either an actor or an enjoyer1. However, as
a preparation, as a means of subduing the passions and
purifying the mind by drawing it away from the low and
vulgar interests of life, all such commandments, together
with the promises of rewards vouchsafed to them, might
perhaps have been tolerated. But when we come to a full
description of the stations on the road by which the subtle
body is supposed to travel from the veins of this body to
the very steps of the golden throne of the Lower Brahman,
we wonder at the long suffering of the true philosopher
who has learnt that the true and highest knowledge of the
Vedanta removes in the twinkling of an eye (ApatataA) the
veil that in this life seems to separate Atman from Brah-
man. As these eschatological dreams have been included
in the Vedanta system, they had to be mentioned here,
though they are better studied in the pages of the Upani-
shads.
We are told there that, in the case of persons who have
fulfilled their religious or sacrificial duties and have lived
a good life, but have not yet reached the highest know-
ledge, the subtle body in which the Atman is clothed
migrates, carried along by the Udana through the Mftr-
dhanya N&di, the capital vein, following either the path of
the fathers (Pitriy&na) or the path of the gods (Devayana).
The former is meant for good people, the latter for those
who are good and have already reached the lower, if not
the highest knowledge. The former leads on to smoke,
night, the waning moon, the waning year, the world of the
fathers, the ether, and lastly the moon. In the moon the
departed souls remain for a time enjoying the rewards of
* See Sarnkara's Introduction to the Aitareya Upanishad.
ESCHATOLOGY. 177
their good deeds, in company with the Pitn's, and then
descend again, supported by the remnant of unrewarded
merit due to their good works, to the ether, wind, smoke,
cloud, rain, and plants. From the plants springs seed
which, when matured in the womb, begins a new life on
earth in such a station as the rest of his former deeds
(Anusaya), Anlage, may warrant. As this is, as far as
I know, the earliest allusion to metempsychosis or fteelen-
wanderung, it may be of interest to see in what sense
/Samkara in his commentary on Sutra III, I, 22 took
it1:—
'It has been explained/ he says, 'that the souls of
those who perform sacrifices, &c., after having reached the
moon, dwell there as long as their works last, and then
redescend with a remainder of their good works. We now
have to inquire into the mode of that descent. On this
point the Veda makes the following statement: "They
return again the way they came to the ether, from the
ether to the air (wind). Then the sacrificer having become
air becomes smoke, having become smoke he becomes mist,
having become mist he becomes a cloud, having become a
cloud he falls down as rain." Here a doubt arises whether
the descending souls pass over into a statQ of identity
(Sabhavyam) with ether, &e., or into a state of similarity
(Samyam) only. The Purvapakshin (opponent) maintains
that the state is one of identity, because this is directly
stated by the text. Otherwise there would take place
what is called indication only (Laksha?i&, i.e. secondary
application . of a word), and whenever the doubt lies be-
tween a directly expressed and a merely indicated meaning,
the former is to be preferred. Thus the following words
also, " Having become air ha becomes smoke," &c., are ap-
propriate only if the soul be understood to identify itself
with them. Hence it follows that the souls (of the de-
parted) become really identical with ether. To this we
($arakara) reply that they only pass into a state of simi-
larity to ether, &c. When the body, consisting of water
which the soul had assumed in the sphere of the moon for
1 S.B.E., vol. xxxvii, Thibaut's translation.
12 N-
i;8 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
the purpose of enjoyment, dissolves at the time when that
enjoyment comes to an end, then it becomes subtle like
ether, passes thereupon into the power of the air, and then
gets mixed with smoke, &c. This is the meaning of the
clauses, " They return as they came to the ether, from the
ether to the air," &c. How is this known to be the mean-
ing ? Because thus only is it possible. For it is not pos-
sible that one thing should become another in the literal
sense of the word. If, moreover, the souls became identified
wl'li ether, they could no longer descend through the air.
And as connection with the ether is, on account of its all-
pervadingness, eternal, no other connection (of the souls)
with if can here be meant, but their entering into a state
of similarity to it. In cases where it is impossible to accept
the literal meaning of the text, it is quite proper to assume
the meaning which is merely indicated. For these reasons
the souls' becoming ether, &c., has to be taken in the secon-
dary sense of their passing into a state of similarity to ether,
and so on/
We see from this that $awkara believed in a similarity
only, an outward and temporary similarity between the
departed (in its Sftkshma-sartra) and the ether, air, mist,
cloud, and rain; and it is important to observe how, in
doing so, he violently twisted the natural meaning of
S&bhavya, the word used in the Sfttras, rather than alter-
ing a word of the Sfttra, and replacing S&bhavyam by
S&myam.
A similar difficulty arises again when it has to be deter-
mined whether the departed, in his further descent, actually
becomes a plant, such as rice, corn, sesamum, beans, &c., or
becomes merely connected with them. Samkara decides
strongly in favour of the latter view, though here again
the actual words of the S6tra have certainly to be twisted
by him ; nay, though Samkara himself has to admit that
other people may really, on account of their bad deeds, sink
so low as to become plants. He only denies this with re-
ference to the departed who, on account of their pious
works, have already reached the moon, and are after that
redescending upon earth.
Lastly, if it is said that the plant, when eaten, becomes
ESCHATOLOGY. 179
a piogenitor, this also, according to tfamkara, can only
mean that it is joined with a progenitor. For the pro-
genitor must exist long before he eats the rice or the
beans, and is able to beget a child. Anyhow, the child
when begotten is the soul that had ascended to and
descended from the moon, and is born again according
to his former works.
I must confess that, though the Ved&ntists may be bound
by /Samkara's interpretation, it seems to me as if the author
of the Sfttras himself had taken a different view, and had
looked throughout on ether, air, mist, cloud, rain, plants as
the habitat, though the temporary habitat only, or the de-
parted in their subtle body \
Little is said in the Upanishads of those who, owing to
their evil deeds, do not even rise to the moon and descend
again. But Badar&yaTia tries to make it clear that the
Upanishads know of a third class of beings (III, I, 12)
who reap the fruits of their evil actions in Samyamana
(abode of Yama) and then ascend to earth again. Theirs
is the third place alluded to in the Kh&nd. Upanishad V,
10, 8.
But while evil doers are thus punished in different hells,
as mentioned in the Puranas, and while pious people are
fully rewarded in the moon and then return again to the
earth, those who have been pious and have also reached at
least the lower knowledge of Brahman follow a different
road. After leaving the body, they enter the flame, the
day, the waxing moon, the waxing year (northern preces-
sion), the year, the world of the Devas, the world of V&yu,
air, the sun, the moon, and then lightning ; but -all these,
we are told, are not abodes for the soul, but guides only
who, when the departed has reached the lightning, hand
him over to a person who is said to be not-a-man. This
person conducts him to the world of Varuna, then to that
of Indra, and lastly to that of Pra(/apati or the qualified
Brahma. Here the souls are supposed to remain till they
realise true knowledge or the Samyagdarsana, which does
not mean universal, but thorough and complete knowledge,
1 See Vishwu Dh. S. XLIII, 45.
N 2
ISO INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
that knowledge which, if obtained on earth, at once frees
a man from all illusion. Finally the souls, when fully re-
leased, share in all the powers of Brahrnan except those of
creating and ruling the universe. They are not supposed
ev.er to return to the world of Samsara (IV, 4, 17).
All this is hardly to be called philosophy, neither do the
different descriptions of the road on which the souls of the
pious are supposed to wander towards Brahrn&, and' which
naturally vary according to different schools, help us much
towards a real insight into the Vedanta. But it would have
been unfair to leave out what, 'though childish, is a charac-
teristic-feature of the Ved£nta-phtlosophy, and must be
judged- from a purely historical point of view.
Freedom in, this Life.
What is of importance to remember in these ancient
fancies is that the enlightened man may become free or
obtain Mukti even in this life (Givanmukti 1). This is
indeed the real object of the Vedknta-philosophy, toA over-
come all Nescience, to become once more what the Atman
always has been, namely Brahman, and then to wait till
death removes the last Up&dhis or fetters, which, though
they fetter the mind no longer, remain like Jbroken chains
hanging heavy on the mortal body. The Atman, having
recovered its Brahmahood, is even in this life so free from
" the body that it feels no longer any pain, and cannot do
anything, whether good or bad This has been always laid
hold of as the most dangerous doctrine of Vedantism, and no
doubt it may be both misunderstood and misapplied. But
in the beginning it meant no more than that the Atman,
which is above the distinctions of subject and object, of past
and present, of cause .and effect, is also by necessity above
the distinction of good and evil. This never was intended
as freedom in the sense of licence, but as freedom that can
neither lapse into sinful acts nor claim any merit for good
acts, being at rest and blessed in itself and in Brahman.
It is hardly necessary to say or to prove that the Vedanta-
philosophy, even in its popular form, holds out no en-
1 Vodanta-Sfctras III, 3, 28,
FEE JB DOM IN THIS LIFE. l8l
couragement to vic$. Far from it. No one can even
approach it who hastoot previously passed through a course
01 discipline, whether as a student (Brahrna&arin) or as
a householder (GrihastKa). In order to make this quite
clear, it may be useful to add a few verses from one of the
many popular works intended to teach Vedanta to the
masses. It is Called the Mohamudgara, the Hammer of
Folly, and is ascribed to /Samkara. Though not strictly
philosophical, it may serve at least to show tjie state of
mind in which the true Ved&ntist is meant tov maintain
himself. It was carefully edited with Bengali, Hindi and
English translations by Durga Das Ray, and published at
Darjeeling in 1888.
' Fool ! give up thy thirst for wealth, banish all desires
from thy heart. Let thy mind be satisfied with what is
gained by thy Karman.
Who is thy wife and who is thy son? Curious are the
ways of this world " Who art thou ? Whence didst thou
come ? Ponder on this, O Brother."
Do not be proud of wealth, of friends, or youth. Time
takes all away in a moment. Leaving all this which is
full of illusion, leave quickly and enter into the place of
Brahman.
Life is tremulous like a water-drop on a lotus-leaf. The
company of the good, though for a moment only, is the
only boat for crossing this ocean of the world
As is birth so is death, and so is th^ dwelling in the
mother's womb. Thus is manifest the misery of the world.
How can there be satisfaction here for thee, O Man !
Day and night, morning and evening, winter and spring
come and go. Time is playing, life is waning — yet the
breath of hope never ceases.
The bpdy is wrinkled, the hair grey, the mouth has
become toothless, the stick in the hand shakes, yet man
leaves not the anchor of hope.
To live under a tree of the house of the gods, to sleep
on the earth, to put on a goat-skin, to abandon all worldly
enjoyment ; when does such surrender not make happy ?
Do not trouble abgut enemy, friend, son, or relation,
whether for war or peace. Preserve equanimity always, if
1 82 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
you desire soon to reach the place of Vishnu (Vishnu-
pada).
The eight great mountains, the seven oceans, Brahma,
Indra, the Sun and the Rudras, thou, I and the whole
world are nothing ; why then is there any sorrow ?
In thee, in me, and in others there dwells Vishnu alone,
it is useless to be angry with me and impatient. See every
self in Self, and give up all thought of difference.
The child is given to play, the youth delights in a beauti-
ful damsel, an old man is absorbed in cares — no one clings
to the Highest Brahman.
Consider wealth as useless, there is truly no particle of
happiness in it. " The rich are afraid even of their son, this
is the rule established everywhere.
So long as a man can earn money, his family is kind to
him. But when his body becomes infirm through old age,
no man in the house asks after him.
Having given up lust, anger, avarice, and distraction,
meditate on thyself, who thou art. Fools without a know-
ledge oiHSelf are hidden in hell and boiled.
In these sixteen verses the whole teaching of the disciples
has been told. Those in whom this does not produce under-
standing, who can do more for them ? '
Different Ways of Studying1 Philosophy.
This may not be exactly moral teaching as we under-
stand it. But there are two ways of studying philosophy.
We may study it in a critical or in a historical spirit.
The critic would no doubt fasten at once on the superses-
sion of morality in the Vedanta as an unpardonable flaw.
One of the corner-stones, without which the grandest
pyramid of thought must necessarily collapse, would seem
to be missing in it. The historian on "the other hand will
be satisfied with simply measuring the pyramid or trying
to scale it step by step, as far as his thoughts will carry
him. He would thus understand the labour it has required
in building up, and possibly discover some counteracting
forces that rendjer the absence even of a corner-stone in-
telligible, pardonable, and free from danger. It is surely
astounding that such a system as the Vedanta should have
DIFFERENT WAYS OF STUDYING PHILOSOPHY. 183
been slowly elaborated by the indefatigable and intrepid
thinkers of India thousands of years ago, a system that
even now makes us feel giddy, as in mounting the last
steps of the swaying spire of an ancient Gothic cathedral.
None of our philosophers, not excepting Heraclitus, Plato,
Kant, or Hegel, has ventured to erect such a spire, never
frightened by storms or lightnings. Stone follows on stone
in regular succession after once the first step has been
made, after once it has been clearly seen that in the
beginning there can have been but One, as there will be
but One in the end, whether we call it Atman or Brahman.
We may prefer to look upon the expansion of the world in
names and forms as the work of Sophia or as the realised
Logos, but we cannot but admire the boldness with which
the Hindu metaphysician, impressed with the miseries and
evanescence of this world, could bring himself to declare
even the Logos to be but the result of Avidya or Nescience,
so that in the destruction of that Avidya could be recog-
nised the highest object, and the summum bonum (Puru-
shartha) of man. We need not praise or try to imitate
a Colosseum, but if we have any heart for the builders of
former days we cannot help feeling that it was a colossal
and stupendous effort. And this is the feeling which
I cannot resist in examining the ancient Vedanta. Other
philosophers have denied the reality of the world as per-
ceived by us, but no one has ventured to deny at the same
time the reality of what we call the -Ego, the senses and
the mind, and their inherent forms. And yet after Jif ting
the Self above body and soul, after^ uniting heaven and
earth, God and man, Brahman and Atman, these 'Vedanta
philosophers have destroyed nothing in the life of the.
phenomenal beings who have to act and to fulfil their
duties in this phenomenal world. On the contrary, they
have shown that there can be nothing phenomenal without
something that is real, and thai? goodness and virtue, faith
and works, are necessary .as a preparation, nay as a sine
qud non. for the attainment of that highest knowledge
which brings the soul bstck to its source and to its home,
and restores it to its true nature, to its true Selfhood in
Brahman.
184 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
And let us think how keenly and deeply Indian thinkers
must have felt the eternal riddles of this world before they
could propose so desperate a solution as that of the Vedanta;
how desperate they must have thought the malady of
mankind to be, before they could think of so radical a cure.
A student of the history of philosophy must brace himself to
follow those whom he wants to reach and to understand. He
has to climb like a mountaineer, undismayed by avalanches
and precipices. He must be able to breathe in the thinnest
air, never discouraged even if snow and ice bar his access
to the highest point ever reached by the boldest explorers.
Even if ne has sometimes to descend again, disappointed,
he has at all events strengthened his lungs and his muscles
for further work. He has done his athletic exercise, and
he has seen » views such a& n.rx3 never seen in the valleys
below. I am myself not a mountaineer, nor am I altogether
a Ved&ntist ; but if I can admire the bold climbers scaling
Mount Gaurf-Samkar, I can also admire the bold thinkers
toiling up to heights of the Vedanta where they seem lost
to us in clouds and sky. Do we imagine that these ascents
were undertaken from mere recklessness, from mere love of
danger? It ig easy for u6 to call those ancient explorers
reckless adventurers, or dispose of them with the help of
other names, such as mystic or pantheist, often but half
understood by those who employ them. The Vedantists
have often been called Atheists, but as the gods which they
denied were only Devas, or what we call false gods, they
might thus far have been forgiven. They have been called
Pantheists, though their theos, or their theoi, were not the
P&n, but the P&n was their theos. They have been called
Nihilists, but they themselves have drawn a sharp line
between the upholders of the $ftnya-v&da *, the emptiness-
doctrine, and their own teaching, which, on the contrary,
insists throughout on the reality that underlies all phe-
nomenal things,, namely Brahman, and inculcates the duties
which even thin world of seeming imposes on all who are
not yet in possession of the highest truth. That this
1 An important distinction between Buddhists and Vedantists is that
the former hold the world to have arisen from what is not, the latter
from what is, the Sat or Brahman.
BAMANU0A. 185
phenomenal ivorld has no exclusive right to the name of
real is surely implied by its very name. Besides, whatever
perishes can never have been real. If heaven and earth
shall pass away ; if we see our body, our senses, and all
that has been built up on them, decaying and perishing
every day before our very eyes ; if the very Ego, the Aham,
is dissolved into the elements from. which it sprang, why
should not the Vedantist also have held to his belief that
Brahman alone is really, real, and everything else a dream ;
and that even the Nama-rupas, the words and things, will
vanish with each Kalpa ?
To sum up, the Vedanta teaches that in the highest
sense Creation is but Self-forgetfulness, and Eternal L^fe
remembrance or Self-consciousness. And while to us such
high abstractions may seem useless for the many, it is all
the more surprising that, with the Hindus, the fundamental
ideas of the Vedanta have pervaded the whole of their
literature, have leaventid the whole of their language, and
form to the present day the common property of the people
at large. No doubt these ideas assume in the streets a
different garment from what they wear among the learned
in the Asramas or the forests of the country. Nay even
among the learned few stand up for the complete Advaita
or Monism as represented by $arakara.
. The danger with $amkara's Vedantism was that what
to him was sim ply phenomenal, should be taken for purely
fictitious. There is, however, as great a difference between
the two as there is between Avidya and Mithyagwana.
Maya1 is the cause of a phenomenal, not of a fictitious,
world : and if £amkara adopts the Vivarta (turning away)
instead of the Pari/iama (evolution) doctrine, there is always
something on which the Vivarta or illusion is at work, and
which cannot be deprived of its reality.
R&m&niv/a.
There are schools of Vedantists who try to explain the
Sutras of Badarayarca in a far more human spirit. The
best known is the school of Ramanu^a, who lived in the
1 In the only passage where the Sfttras speak of Maya (III, a, 3), it
need not meato more than a dream.
1 86 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
twelfth century A.D. l If we place $amkara's literary
activity about the eighth century -, the claim of priority
and of prior authority would belong to $amkara. But we
must never forget that in India more than anywhere else,
philosophy was not the property of individuals, but that,
as in the period of the Upanishads, so in later times also,
everybody was free to contribute his share. As we find
a number of teachers mentioned in the Upanishads, and as
they give us long lists of names, pupil succeeding teacher
through more than fifty spiritual generations, the com-
mentators also quote ever so many authorities in support
of the views which they either accept or reject. Hence we
cannot accept /Samkara as the only infallible interpreter of
the Vedanta-Sutras, but have to recognise in his commen-
tary one only of the many traditional interpretations of
the Sutras which prevailed at different times in different
parts of India, and in different schools. A most important
passage in this respect is that in which $arakara has to
copfess that others (apare tu vadinaA) differ from him, and
some, as he adds, even of our own (asmadiyas 7ca Kefcit) 3.
This allows us a fresh insight into the philosophical life
of India which is worth a great deal, particularly a&j the
difference of opinion refers to a fundamental doctrine,
namely the absolute identity of the individual soul with
Brahman. $amkara, as we saw, was uncompromising on
that point. With him and, as he thinks, with Badarayawa
also, no reality is allowed to the soul (Atman) as an indi-
vidual (Criva), or to the world as presented to and by the
senses. With him the soul's reality is Brahman, and
Brahman is one only. But others, he adds, allow reality to
the individual souls also. Now this is the very -opinion
on which another philosopher, Ramanugra, has based his
own interpretation of Badaray ana's Sutras, and has founded
a large and influential sect. But it does not follow that
this, whether heretical or orthodox opinion, was really first
propounded by Ramanut/a, for Ramanu</a declares himself
dependent on former teachers (Pftrv^aryaA), and appeals
1 Wilson, Works, I, p. 35.
3 I-tsing, Introduction, p. xv, 788-820 A. D. ; Kumarila, 750 A. D.
3 S.B.E., XXXIV, p. xx, Thibaut.
RAMANJtfA. 187
particularly to a somewhat prolix Sfttra-vritti by Bodha-
yana as his authority. Ramanu^a1 himself quotes not only
Bodhayana, but after him Tanka, Dramida (or Dravida),
Guhadeva, Kapardin, Bharufci. One of them, Dravida, is
expressly said to have been anterior to $amkara, and so
must Bodhayana have been, if he is meant by the Vritti-
kara whom £amkara himself criticises 2.
We ought, therefore, to look on B&m&nu^a as a perfect
equal of $amkara, so far as his right of interpreting Bada-
rayaTia's Sfttras, according to his own opinion, is concerned.
It is the same here as everywhere in Hindu philosophy.
The individual philosopher is but the mouthpiece of tradi-
tion, and that tradition goes back further and further, the
more we try to fix it chronologically. While $amkara^s
system is Advaita, i. e. absolute Monism, that of Ramanugra
has been called Visishfa-Advaita, the doctrine of unity
with attributes or Monism with a difference. Of course
with R&manw/a also Brahman is the highest reality, omni-
potent, omniscient, but this Brahman is at the same time
full of compassion or love. This is a new and very im-
portant feature in Ramanuc/a's Brahman, as compared with
the icy self -sufficiency ascribed to Brahman by $amkara.
Even more important and more humanising is the recog-
nition that souls as individuals possess reality, that Kit
and A&it, what perceives and -what does not perceive,
soul and matter, form, as it were, the body of Brahman 3,
are in fact modes (Prakara) of Brahman. Sometimes Kit
is taken for the Supreme Spirit as a conscious cause, A&it
for the unconscious effect or matter ; but there is always
Isvara as a third, the Lord ; and ^his, originally Brahma, is
later on identified without much ado with Vishnu, so that
Ramanu^a's sect is actually called $ri-Vaislmava. It
assumed no doubt the greatest importance as a religious
sect, as teaching people how to live rather than how to
think. But to us its chief interest is its philosophical
character, and more particularly its relation to the Bada-
rayana-Sutras and /S'amkara's explanation of them.
Brahman, whether under the name of Isvara, Vishnu, or
1 S.B.E., XXXIV, p. xxi. a Deussen, The Vedanta-Philosophy, p. 31.
8 Colebrooke, Misc. Assays, I, 439 n.
1 88 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Vasudeva, or Bhagavat, is with Ramanugra as with /Sam-
kara both the efficient and the material cause of all that
exists, and he is likewise the lord and ruler of the world.
But here mythology comes in at once. From this Brah-
man, according to -Ramanu^ra, spring Samkarsha-na, the
individual soul (Criva), from Samkarsha^a Pradyumna,
mind (Manas), and from Pradyumna Aniruddha or the Ego
(Ahankara). Brahma, masc., here called Vasudeva, is-tnot
without qualities, as Samkara holds, but possesses (Wana
(knowledge), $akti (energy), Bala (strength), Aisvarya
(supreme power), Virya (vigour), and Tegras (energy) as his
Gunas or qualities. Much more of the same kind may be
found in Colebrooke l.
The real philosophical character of Ramanuc/a's Vedant-
ism has for the first time been placed in its true light by
Professor Thibaut, from whom we may soon expect a com-
plete translation of Ramanuga's own commentary on th.e
Vedanta-Sfttras, the £ribhashya. As, according to Rama-
nw/a, Brahmi. A is not NirguTia, without qualities, such
qualities as intelligence, power, and mercy are ascribed to
him, while with $amkara even intelligence was not a
quality of Brahman, but Brahman was intelligence, pure
thought, and pure being. Besides these qualities, Brah-
man is supposed to possess, as. constituent elements, the
material world and the individual souls, and to act as the
inward ruler (Antaryamin) of them. Hence, neither the
world nor the individual souls will ever cease to exist.
All that Ramanu</a admits is that they pass through
different stages as Avyakta and Vyakta. As Vyakta, de-
veloped, they are what we know them to be on earth ; as
Avyakta they are enveloped (Samko/dta). This involution
takes place at the end of each Kalpa, when Brahman
assumes its causal state (K&raTiavastha), and when indi-
vidual souls and individual things lose for a time their
distinct and independent character. Then follows, by the
mere will of Brahma, the evolution, or the new creation of
#ross and visible matter, and an assumption by the indi-
vidual souls of new material bodies, according to the merit
1 Colobrookc, Misc. Essays, I, p. 439.
KAMANU0A. 189
or demerit of their former existence. The important point
is that the individual souls, According to Ramanu#a, retain
their individuality even when they have reached the bliss-
ful abode of Brahman. The world is not considered by
him as merely the result of Avidya, but is real, while
Brahman is to be looked upon and worshipped as a personal
god, the creator and ruler of a real world. Tlfus tsvara,
the Lord, is not to be taken as a phenomenal god ; and the
difference between Brahman and tsvara vanishes, as much
as the difference between a qualified and an unqualified Brah-
man, between a higher and a lower knowledge. Here we
perceive the influence exercised on philosophy by the com-
mon sense or the common sentiment of the people. In
other countries in which philosophy is, as it were, the
private property of individual thinkers, that influence is
far less perceptible. But extreme views like those pro-
pounded by $amjcara were, as might be expected, too mu ch
for the great mass of the people, who might be willing to
accept the doctrines of the Upanishads in their vagueness,
but Who would naturally shrink from the conclusions
drawn from them with inexorable consistency by $amkara.
If it is impossible to say, as £awkara says, '1 am not/ it is
difficult at least to say, ' I am not I/ but ' I am Brahman/
It may be possible to say that tsvara or the Lord is Brah-
man ; but to worship Isvara, and to be told at the same
time that tavara is but phenomenal, must be trying even
to the most ardent of worshippers. If therefore Ramanu^a,
while professing his faith in the Upanishads and his alle-
giance to Badarayana, could give back to his followers not
only their own souls, but also a personal god, no wonder
that his success should have been so great as it was.
In the absence of any definite historical materials it is
auite impossible for us to say whether, in the historical
development of the Vedanta-philosophy at the time of
Badarayana and afterwards, it was the absolute Monism
as represented by $awkara that took the lead, or whether
the more temperate Monism, as we see it in Ramanu#a's
commentary, exercised an earlier sway. There are cer-
tainly some Sfttras which, as Dr. Thibaut has shown, lend
themselves far more readily to Ramanu^a's than to
1 9O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
$amkara's interpretation. The question as to the nature
of individual souls seems decided by the author of the
Sutras in favour of Ramanu#a rather than of $amkara.
We read in S&tra II, 3, 43, 'The soul is a part of Brahman/
Here the soul is clearly declared to be a part of Brahman,
and this is the view of Ramanugra ; but $amkara explains it
by ' a part, as it were/ since Brahman, being not composed
of parts, cannot have parts in the literal sense of the word.
This seems ;a bold proceeding of /Samkara's ; and though
he tries to justify it by very ingenious arguments, Rama-
nugra naturally takes his stand on the very words of the
Sfttra. Similar cases have been pointed out by Dr. Thibaut ;
and this very diversity of opinion confirms what I re-
marked before, that the Ved&nta philosophers of India,
though they look both on Upanishads and the Sfttras as
their highest authorities, often present a body of doctrine
independent of them ; colonies, as it were, of thought that
had grown to be independent of the mother-country, but
are anxious nevertheless to prove that their own doctrines
can be reconciled with the old authorities. This W&s the
position assumed by Badarayatia towards the Upanishads,
so much so that nearly the whole of the first book of his
Sfttras had to be devoted to showing that his own views
of Brahman were not in conflict with certain passages in
the Upanishads. Some of theip may refer to the lower
Brahman, some to the individual soul as one with Brah-
man ; and it is on these points that, at a later time, $am-
kara and Ramanu^ra would naturally have differed. What
was important for BadarayaTia to show was that no pas-
sages from the Upanishads could fairly be quoted in
support of other philosophies, such as the Samkhya, of
which both $amkara and Ramanugra would disapprove.
In the same manner both &amkara and Ramanu</a are
anxious to show that they themselves are in perfect agree-
ment with Badarayawa. Both, however, approach the Sutras
as if they had some opinions of their own to defend and to
bring into harmony with the Sutras. We can only sup-
pose that schools in different parts of India had been grow-
ing up fast in the hermitages of certain teachers and their
pupils, and that all were anxious to show that they had
RA MANTJ0A.
not deviated from such paramount and infallible autho-
rities as the Sutras and the Upanishads. This was done
by means of what is called Mimamsa, or a critical discus-
sion of passages which seemed to be ambiguous or had
actually been twisted into an unnatural meaning by impor-
tant teachers.
Dr. Thibaut l therefore seems to me quite right when he
says that both $amkara and Ramanuigfa pay often less
regard to the literal sense of the words and to tradition
than to their desire of forcing Badarayana to bear testi-
mony to the truth of their own philosophical theories.
This only confirms what I said before about the rich
growth of philosophical thought in India, independent of
Sutras and Upanishads, though influenced by both. Even
if we admit that BadarayaTia wished to teach in his Sutras
nothing but what he found in the Upanishads, it must not
be forgotten that the Upanishads contain ever so many
conflicting guesses at truth, freely uttered by thinkers
who had no personal relations with each other, and had no
idea of propounding a unifdrm system of religious philo-
sophy. If these conflicting utterances of the Upanishads
had to be reduced to a system, we can hardly blaine $am-
kara for his taking refuge in the theory of a higher and
a lower Brahman, the former being the Brahman of philo-
sophy, the other that of religion, and both, as he thought,
to be found in different parts of the Veda. By doing that
he avoided the necessity of arguing away a number of
purel y anthropomorphic features, incongruous, if applied to
the highest Brahman, and dragging down even the Brah-
man of the lower Vidya to a lower stage than philosophers
would approve of. Ramaiiu^a's Brahman is always one
and the same, and, according to him, the knowledge of
Brahman is likewise but one ; but his Brahman is in conse-
sequence hardly more than an exalted Lsvara. He is able
to perform the work of creation without any help from
Maya or Avidya ; and the souls of the departed, if only
their life has been pure and holy, are able to approach this
Brahma, sitting on his throne, and to enjoy their rewards
1 S.B.E., XXXIV, p.xcvi
1 92 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
in a heavenly paradise. The higher conception of Brah-
man excluded of course not only everything mythological,
but everything like activity or workmanship, so that
creation could only be conceived as caused by May& l or
Avidya ; while the very idea of an approach of the souls
of the departed to the throne of Brahman, or of their soiuls
being merged in Brahman, was incompatible with the
fundamental tenet that the two were, and always remain,
one and the 3same, never separated except by Nescience,.
The idea of an approach of the soul to Brahman, nay, even
of the individual soul being a separate part of Brahman, to
be again joined to Brahman after death, runs counter to the
conception of Brahman, as explained by $amkara, however
prominent it may be in the Upanishads and in the system
of Ram&nu#a. It must be admitted therefore that in India,
instead of one Vedanta-philosophy, we have really two,
springing from the same root but extending its branches
in two very different directions, that of $amkara being kept
for unflinching reasoners who, supported by an unwavering
faith in Monism, do not shrink from any of its consequences ;
another, that of R&m&nugra, trying hard to reconcile their
Monism with the demands of the human heart that required,
and always will require, a personal god, as the last cause
of all that is, and an eternal soul that yearns for an
approach to or a reunion with that Being.
I am well aware that the view oif the world, of God, and
of the soul, as propounded by the Vedantists, whether in
the Upanishads or in the Sfttras and their commentaries,
has often been declared strange and fanciful, and unworthy
of the name of philosophy, at all events utterly unsuited
to the West, whatever may have been its value in the
East. I have nothing to say against this criticism, nor
have I ever tried to make propaganda for Vedantism,
least of all in England. But I maintain that it represents
a phase of philosophic thought which no student of philo-
sophy can afford to ignore, and which in no country can
be studied to greater advantage? than in India. And I go
even a step further. I quite admit that, as a popular philo-
1 Vcd Sutras II, a, 2, sub fine : Avidyapratyupasthapitanamarupama-
yavesavasena, 'Through l;oing possessed of the Maya of names and forms
brought near by Avidya.'
EAMANU0A. 193
sophy, the Vedanta would have its dangers, that it would
fail to call out and strengthen the manly qualities required
for the practical side of life, and that it might raise the
human mind to a height from which the most essential
virtues of social and political life might dwindle away into
mere phantoms. At the same time I make no secret that
all my life I have been very fond of the Vedanta. Nay,
I can fully agree with Schopenhauer, and quite understand
what he meant when he said, — ' In the whole world there
is no study, except that of the original (of the Upanishads),
so beneficiaj and so elevating as that of the Oupnekhat
(Persian translation of the Upanishads). It has been the
solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death/
Schopenhauer was the last man to write at random, or
to allow himself to go into ecstasies over so-called mystic
and inarticulate thought. And I am neither afraid nor
ashamed to s&y that I share his enthusiasm for the
Vedanta, and feel indebted to it for much that has been
helpful to me in my passage through life. After all it is
not everybody who is called upon to take an active part in
life, whether in defending or ruling a country, in amassing
wealth, or in breaking stones ; and for fitting men to lead
contemplative and quiet lives, I know no better preparation
than the Vedanta. A man may be a Platonist, and yet a
good citizen and an honest Christian, and I should say the
same of a Vedantist. They may be called useless by the
busy and toiling portion of humanity; but if it is true
that 'those also serve who only stand and wait/ then
may we not hope that even the quiet in the land are not
. so entirely useless as they appear to be ?
And while some of the most important doctrines of the
Vedanta, when placed before us in the plain and direct
language of the Vedanta-Sutras, may often seem very
startling to us, it is curious to observe how, if clothed in
softer language, they do not jar at all on our ears, nay, are
in full harmony with our own most intimate convictions.
Thus, while the idea that our own self and the Divine
Self are identical in nature might seem irreverent, if not
blasphemous, one of our own favourite hymns contains the
prayer,—
13 °
194 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
And that a higher gift than gra<
Should flesh and blood refine,
God's Presence and His very Sellj
And Essence all-divine!
This is pure Vedanta. We also speak without hesitation
of our body, as the temple of God, and of the voice of God
within us; nay, 'we repeat with St. Paul that we live, and
move, and have our being in God, -yet we shrink from
adopting the plain and simple language of the Upanishads
that the Self of God and man is the same.
Again, the unreality of the material world, though
proved point by point by Berkeley, seems to many a pure
fancy; and yet one of our most popular poets, the very
type of manliness and strength, both mental and physical,
speaks like a Vecjantist of the shadows among which we
move : —
For more than once when I1
Sat all alone, revolving in myself
The word that is the symbol of myself,
The mortal limit of the Self was loosed,
And passed into the Nameless, as a cloud
Melts into Heaven. I touched my limbs — the limbs
Were strange, not mine— and yet no shade of doubt,
But utter clearness, and thro'* loss of Self
The gain of such large life as matched with ours
Were Sun to spark — unshadowable in words,
Themselves but shadows of a shadow- world,
It would be easy to add similar passages from Words-
worth, Goethe, and others, to show that after all there is
some of the Indian leaven left in us, however unwilling we
may be to confess it. Indian thought will never quite
square with English thoughts, and the English words which
we have to adopt in rendering Indian ideas are never quite
adequate. All we can do is to strive to approximate as
near as possible, and not to allow these inevitable dif-
ferences to prejudice us against what, though differently
expressed, is often meant for the same.
There is one more point that requires a few remarks.
1 Tennyson, The Ancient Sage.
METAPHORS. 1 95
Metaphors.
It has often been said that the Vedanta-philosophy deals
too much in metaphors, and that most of them, though
fascinating at first sight, leave us in the end unsatisfied,
because they can only illustrate, but cannot prove. This
is true, no doubt ; but in philosophy illustration also by
means of metaphors has its value, and I doubt whether
they were ever meant for more than that. Thus, when the
Vedanta has to explain how the Sat, the Real or Brahman,
dwells within us, though we cannot distinguish it, the
author of the JCA&ndogya Up. VI, 13, introduces a father
telling his son to throw a lump of salt into water, and after
some time to take it out again. Of course he cannot do it,
but whenever he tastes the water it is salt. In the same
way, the father says, the Sat, the Divine, is within us,
though we cannot perceive it by itself.
Another application of the same simile (Brihad. Ar. Up.
II, 4, 1 2) seems intended to show that the Sat or Brahman,
in permeating the whole elementary world, vanishes, so
that there is no distinction left between the individual Self
and the Highest Self *.
Again, when we read 2 that the manifold beings are pro-
duced from the Eternal as sparks spring from a burning
fire, we should remember that this metaphor illustrates
the idea that all created beings share in the substance
of the Supreme Being, that for a time they seem to be
independent, but that they vanish again without caus-
ing any diminution in the Power from whence they
sprang.
The idea of a creating as a making of the world is most
repugnant to the Vedantist, and he tries in every way to
find another simile by which to illustrate the springing of
the world from Brahman as seen in this world of Nescience.
In order to avoid the necessity of admitting something
extraneous, some kind of matter out of which the world
was shaped, the Upanishads point to the spider spinning
its web out of itself ; and, in order to show that things can
1 See Deussen, Upanishads, p. 41$, f«.r a different explanation,
8 Brih. !r. Up. II, i, 20.
O 2
196 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
spring into existence spontaneously, they use the simile of
the hairs springing from a man's head without any special
wish of the man himself. -
Now it may be quite true that none of these illustrations
can be considered, nor were they intended as arguments in
support of the Upanishad-philosophy, but they are at all
events very useful in reminding us by means of striking
similes of certain doctrines arrived at by the Vedanta
philosophers in their search after truth.
CHAPTER V.
Pftrva-Mimaros&.
IT would be interesting to trace at once the same 01
very similar tendencies to those of the Ved&nta in the
development of other Indian philosophies, and particularly
of the Samkhya and Yoga, and to see what they have to
say on the existence and the true nature of a Supreme
Being, and the relation of human beings to that Divine
Being, as shadowed forth in certain passages of the Veda,
though differently interpreted by different schools of philo-
sophy. But it seems -better on the whole to adhere to the
order adopted by the students of philosophy in India, and
trept of the other Mimamsa, the Purva-Mim&msa, that is
the Former Mimamsa, as it is called, in connection with
the one we have examined. The Hindus admit a Pftrva-
Mim&msa and an Uttara-Mirna?nsa. They look upon the
Ved&nta as the Uttara- or later Mimams&, and on that of
Craimini as the Pftrva-, or prior. These names, however,
were not meant to imply, as Colebrooke l seems to have
supposed, that the Pftrva-Mimamsji was prior in time,
though it is true that it is sometimes called Pr&M 2, pre-
vious. It really meant no more than that the Pftrva-
MimUmsa, having to do with the KarmakaTidfa, the first
or work-part of the Veda, comes first, and the Uttara-
Mimams&, being concerned with the (?/7anakaraZa, comes
second, just as an orthodox Hindu at one time was
required to be a Grihastha or householder first, and then
only to retire into the forest and lead the contemplative
life of a Vanaprastha or a Samny&sin. We shall see, how-
ever, that this prior Mimamsa, if it can be called a philo-
sophy at all, is very inferior in interest to the Vedanta,
1 Colebrooke, Misc. Essays, vol. i, p. 239. Hitter, History of Philosophy,
vol. iv, p. 376, in Morrison's translation.
a Sarvadarsana-sawgraha, p. 122, 1. 3.
198 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
and could hardly be understood without the previous
existence of such a system as that of Badaraya?ia. I should
not like, however, to commit myself so far as to claim
priority in time for the Vedanta. It has a decided priority
in importance, and in its relation to the Gf, ana-portion of
the Veda. We saw why the fact that Badaraya7ta quotes
ffaimini cannot be used for chronological purposes, for
(raimini returns the compliment and quotes Badarayaraa.
How this is to be accounted for, I tried to explain before.
It is clear that while Badarayarm endeavoured to intro-
duce order into the Upanishads, and to reduce their various
guesses to something like a system, (?aimini undertook to
do the same for the rest of the Veda, the so-called Karma-
k&nd& or work-portion ; that is, all that had regard to
sacrifice, as described chiefly in the Br&hina%as. Sacrifice
was so much the daily life of the Brahmans that the
recognised name for sacrifice was simply Karman, i.e. work.
That work grew up in different parts of India, just as we
saw philosophy springing up, full of variety, not free even
from contradictions. Every day had its sacrifi.ce, and in
some respects these regular sacrifices may be called the
first calendar of India. They depended on the seasons or
regulated the seasons and marked the different divisions of
the year. There were some rites that lasted the whole
year or even several years. And as philosophy existed,
independent of the Upanishads, and through Badarayawa
attempted to make peace with the TJpanishads, we must
consider that sacrifices ako existed for a long time without
the Brahma^as, such as we possess them ; that they grew
up without being restrained by generally binding authori-
ties of any kind ; and that at a later time only, after the
Brahman as had been composed and had acquired some
kind of authority, the necessity began to be felt of recon-
ciling variant opinions and customs, as embodied in the
Brahmawas and elsewhere, giving general as well as special
rules for the performance of every kind of ceremony.
We can hardly imagine that there ever was a time in
India when the so-called priests, settled in distant localities,
did not know how to perform their own sacrificial duties,
for who were the authors of them, if not the priests ?
PURVA-MIMiafSA. 199
when the Brahmar?as once existed, a new problem had ^o
be solved: how to bring the BrahmaTias into harmony
with themselves and with existing family and local cus-
toms, and also how to discover in them a meaning that
should satisfy every new generation. This was achieved
by means of what is called Mimawisa, investigation,
examination, consideration. There is little room for real
philosophy in all this, but there are questions such as that
of Dharma or duty, including sacrificial duties, which offer
an opportunity for discussing the origin of duty and the
nature of its rewards ; while in accounting for seeming con-
tradictions and in arriving at general principles concerning
'sacrificial acts, problems would naturally turn up which,
though often in themselves valueless, are generally treated
with considerable ingenuity. In this way the work of
(?aimini secured for itself a place by the side of the works
ascribed to Badaraya^a, Kapila and others, and was actu-
ally raised to the rank of one of the six classical philo-
sophies of India. It cannot tKerefore be passed over in
a survey of Indian philosophy.
While Badaraya?m begins his Sfttras with Atiiato Brah-
ma$i$>?asa, * Now therefore the desire of knowing Brahman/
(7aimini, apparently in imitation of it, begins with Athato
Dharmogrit/iz&sa, * Now therefore the desire of knowing
Dharma or duty/ The two words 'Now therefore' offer
as usual a large scope to a number of interpreters, but they
mean no more in the end than that now, after the Veda
has been read, and because it has been read, there arises
a desire for knowing the full meaning of either Dharma,
duty, or of Brahman, the Absolute ; the former treated in
the Uttara-, the latter in the Pfrrva-Mimamsa. In fact,
whatever native commentators may say to the contrary,
this first Sutra is not much more than a title, as if we
were to say, Now begins the philosophy of duty, or the
philosophy of (raimini.
Dharma, here translated by duty, refers to acts of pre-
scriptive observance, chiefly sacrifices. It is said to be
a neuter, if used in the latter sense, a very natural distinc-
tion, though there is little evidence to that effect in the
Sfttras or in the literature known to us.
2OO INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
This Dharma or duty is enjoined in the Brahman as, and
these together with the Mantras are held to constitute the
whole of the Veda, so that whatever is not Mantra is
Brahma?m, whatever is not BrahmaTia is Mantra. The
Brahmawas are said to consist of Vidhis, injunctions, and
Arthavadas, glosses. The injunctions are meant* either to
make us do a thing that had not been done before, or to
make us know a thing that had not been known before 1.
Subsequently the Vidhis2 are divided into Utpatti-vidhis,
original or general injunctions, such as Agnihotram #uhoti,
he performs the Agnihotra, and Viniyoga-vidhi, showing
the manner in which a sacrifice is to be performed. The
latter comprises injunctions as to the details, such as
Dadhna guhoti, he performs the sacrifice with sour milk, &c.
Then follow the Prayoga-vidhis which settle the exact
order of sacrificial performances, and there is lastly a class
of injunctions which determine who is fit to perform a
sacrificial act. They are called Adhikara-vidhis.
The hymns or formulas which are to be used at a sacrifice,
though they are held to possess also a transcendental or
mysterious effect, the Apurva, are conceived by (7aimini as
mainly intended to remind the sacrificer of the gods who
are to receive his sacrificial gifts.
He likewise lays stress on what he calls Namadheya or
the technical name of each sacrifice, such as Agnihotra,
Darsapftrnamasa, Udbhid, &c. These names are found in
the Brahmawas, and they are considered important, as no
doubt they are, in defining the nature of a sacrifice. The
Nishedhas or prohibitions require no explanation. They
simply state what ought not to be done at a sacrifice.
Lastly, the Arthavadas are passages in the Brahmawas
which explain certain things ; they vary in character, being
either glosses, comments, or explanatory statements.
Contents of the P&rva-Mim&ms&.
Perhaps I cannot do better than give the principal con-
tents of (jaimini's Sutras, as detailed by Madhava in his
1 Rigvedabhashya, vol. i, p. 5.
2 Thibaut, Arthasamgraha, p. viii.
CONTENTS OF THE JPUllVA-MIMAi¥SA. 2OI
Nyaya-mala-vistara l. The Mimamsa consists of twelve
books. In the first book is discussed the authoritative-
ness of those collections of words which are severally
meant by the terms injunction (Vidhi), explanatory passage
(Arthavada), hymn (Mantra), tradition (Srmiti), and name
(Namadheya). In the second we find certain subsidiary
discussions, as e. g. on Apurva, relative to the difference of
various rites, refutation of erroneously alleged proofs, and
difference of performance, as in obligatory and voluntary
offerings. In the third are considered revelation (Sruti),
* sign ' or sense of a passage (Linga), ' context ' (Vakya), &c.,
and their respective weight, when in apparent opposition to
one another; then the ceremonies called Pratipathi-Kar-
mam, things mentioned by the way, Anarabhyadhita, things
accessory to several main objects, as Praya^as, &c., and the
duties of the sacrificer. In the fourth the chief subject is
the influence of the principal and subordinate rites on other
rites, the fruit produced by the Guhu when made of the
Butea frondosa, &c., and the dice-playing, &c., which forms
part of the Ra^asuya-sacrifice. In the fifth the subjects
are the relative order of different passages of the Sruti, &c.,
the order of different parts of a sacrifice, as the seventeeq
animals at the Va#apeya, the multiplication and rion-multi-
plication of rites, and the respective force of the words of
the Sruti, the order of mention, &c., as determining the
order of performance. In the sixth we read of the persons
qualified to offer sacrifices, their obligations, the substitutes
for prescribed maiemls, supplies for lost or injured offer-
ings, expiatory rites, the Sattra-offeririgs, things proper to
be given, and the different sacrificial fines. In the seventh
is treated the mode of transference of the ceremonies of one
sacrifice to another by direct * command in the Vaidic text,
others as inferred by 'name' or 'sign/ In the eighth,
transference by virtue of the clearly expressed or obscurely
expressed ' sign ' or by the predominant ' sign/ and cases
also where no transference takes place. InA the ninth, the
discussion begins with the adaptation (Uha) of hymns,
1 See Cowell and Gough in then* translation of the Sarvadarsana-
samgraha, p. 178.
2O2 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
when quoted in a new connection, the adaptation of Samans
and Mantras, and collateral questions connected therewith,
In the tenth the occasions are discussed where the non-
performance of the primary rite involves the * preclusion *
and non-performance of the dependent rites, and occasions
when rites are precluded, because other rites produce their
special results, also Graha-offerings, certain Samans, and
various other things, as well as different kinds of negation.
In the eleventh we find the incidental mention and subse-
quently the fuller discussion of Tantra. where several acts
are combined into one, and Avapa, or the performing an
act more than once. In the twelfth there is the discussion
on Prasanga,- when the rite is performed with one chief
purpose, but with an incidental further reference, on
Tantra, cumulation of concurrent rites (Sarnu&Maya), and
option.
It is easy to see from this table of contents that neither
Plato nor Kant would have felt much the wiser for them.
But we must take philosophies as they are given us ; arid
we should spoil the picture of the philosophical life of
India, if we left out of consideration their speculations
about sacrifice as contained in the Purva-Mimamsa. There
are passages, however, which appeal to philosophers, such
as, for instance, the chapter on the Pramanas or the authori-
tative sources of knowledge, on the relation between word
and thought, and similar subjects. It is true that most of
these questions are treated in the other philosophies also,
but they have a peculiar interest as treated by the ritualistic
Piirva-Mimamsa.
Pramanas of t?aimini.
Thus if we turn our attention first to the Pramanas, the
measures of knowledge, or the authorities to which we can
appeal as the legitimate means of knowledge, as explained
by the Ptirva-Mimamsa, we saw before that the VedanSsts
did not pay much attention to them,, though they were
acquainted with the three fundamental Praiuawas — sense-
perception, inference, and revelation. The Purva-Mirnamsa,
on the contrary, devoted considerable attention to this
subject, and admitted five, (i) Sense-perception, Pratyaksha,
SUTRA- STYLE. 203
when the organs are actually in contiguity with an object ;
(2) Inference (Anumana), i. e. the apprehension of an unseen
member of a known association (Vyapti) by the perception
of another seen member ; (3) Comparison (Upamana), know-
ledge arising from resemblance; (4) Presumption (Artha-
patti), such knowledge as can be derived of a thing not
itself perceived, but implied by another ; (5) $abda, verbal
information derived from authoritative sources. One sect
of Mimamsakas, those who follow KumarilaBhafta, admitted
besides, (6) Abhava, not-being, which seems but a subdivision
of inference, as if we infer dry ness of the soil from the not-
being or absence of clouds and rain.
All these sources of information are carefully examined,
but it is curious that Mimamsakas should admit this large
array of sources of valid cognition, considering that for
their own purposes, for establishing the nature of Dharma
or duty, they practically admit but one, namely scripture
or $abda. Duty, they hold, cannot rest on human authority,
because the 'ought* which underlies all duty, can only be
supplied by an authority that is more than human or more
than fallible, and such an authority is nowhere to be found
except in the Veda. This leaves, of course, the task
of proving the superhuman origin of the Veda on the
shoulders of (?aimini; and we shall see hereafter how he
performs it.
Before, however, we enter on a consideration of any of
the problems treated in the Purva-Mimamsa, a few remarks
have to be made on a peculiarity in the structure of the
Sutras. In order to discuss a subject fully, and to arrive
in the end at a definite opinion, the authors of the Sutras
are encouraged to begin with stating first every possible
objection that can reasonably be urged against what is their
own opinion. As long as the objections are not perfectly
absurd, they have a right to be stated, and this is called
the Purvapaksha, the first part. Then follow answers to
all these objections, and this is called the Uttarapaksha,
the latter part ; and then only are we led on to the final
conclusion, the Siddhanta. This system is exhaustive and
204 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
has many advantages, but it has also the disadvantage, as
far as the reader is concerned, that, without a commentary,
he often feels doubtful where the cons end and the pros
begin. The commentators themselves differ sometimes on
that point. Sometimes again, instead of three, a case or
Adhikaraw-a is stated in five members, namely : —
i. The subject to* be explained (Vishaya).
3. The doubt (Samsaya).
3. The first side or prima facie view (Purvapaksha).
4. The demonstrated conclusion (Siddhanta) ; and
5. The connection (Samgati).
This is illustrated in the commentary on the first and
second SMras of the Mima/msa \ which declares that a desire
to know duty is to be entertained, and then defines duty
(Charm a) as that which is to be recognised by an insti-
gatory passage, that is by a passage from the Veda. Here
the question to be discussed (Vishaya) is, whether the study
of Duty in Craimini's Mimamsa is really necessary to be
undertaken. The Purvapaksha says of course, No, for
when it is said that the Veda should be learnt (Vedo
*dhyetavya&), that clearly means either that it should be
understood, like any other book which we read, or that it
should be learnt by heart without any attempt, as yet, on
the part of the pupil to understand it, simply as a work
good in itself, which has its reward in heaven. This is
a very common view among the ancient Brahmans ; for, as
they had no written books, they had a very perfect system
for imprinting texts on the memory of young persons, by
making them learn every day a certain number of verses
or lines by heart, without any attempt, at first, of making
them understand what they learnt; and afterwards only
supplying the key to the meaning. This acquisition of the
mere sound of the Veda was considered highly meritorious ;
nay, some held that the Veda was more effieac'ous, if not
understood than if understood. This was in fact their
printing or rather their writing, and without it their
mnemonic literature would have been simply impossible.
1 Sarvadarsana-samgraha, p. iaa ; translation by Cowell and Gough,
p. 1 80 ; Siddhanta Dipika, 1898, p. 194.
SUTRA-STYLE. 205
As we warn our compositors against trying to understand
what they are printing, Indian pupils were cautioned against
the same danger ; and they succeeded in learning the longest
texts by heart, without even attempting at first to fathom
their meaning. To us sucl\ a system seems almost in-
credible, but no other system was possible in ancient times,
and there is no excuse for being incredulous, for it may still
be witnessed in India to the present day.
Only after the text had thus been imprinted on the
memory, there came the necessity of interpretation or
understanding. And here the more enlightened of the
Indian theologians argue that the Vedic command ' Vedo
»dhyetavyaA,' ' the yeda is to be gone over, that is, is to be'
acquired, to be learnt by heart/ implies that it is also to
be understood, and that this intelligible purpose is prefer-
able to the purely mechanical one, though miraculous
rewards may be held out for that.
But if so, it is asked, what can be the use of the
Mlm8tws&? The pupil learns the Veda by heart, and
learns to understand it in the house of his teacher. After
that -he bathes, marries and sets up his own house, so that
it is argued there would actually be no time for any inter-
vening study of the Mimamsa. Therefore the imaginary
opponent, the Purvapakshin, objects that the study of the
Mim&msa is not necessary at all, considering that it rests
on no definite sacred command. But here the Siddh&ntin
steps forward and says that the Smr?^ti passage enjoining
a pupil's bathing (graduating) on returning to his house is
net violated by an intervening study of the Mimamsa,
because it is not said that, after having finished his
apprenticeship, he should immediately bathe ; and because,
though his learning of the text of the Veda is useful in
every respect, a more minute study of the sacrificial pre-
cepts of the Veda, such as is given in the Mimamsa, cannot
be considered superfluous, as a means towards the highest
object of the study of the Veda, viz. the proper performance
of its commands.
These considerations in support of the Siddhanta or final
conclusion would probably fall under the name of Samgati,
connection, though I must confess that its meaning is not
2O6 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
quite clear to me. There are besides several points in the
course of this discussion, such as, for instance, the so-called
four Kriyaphalas, on which more information is much to
be desired.
Has the Veda a Superhuman Origin?
This discussion leads on to another and more important
one, whether the Veda has supreme authority, whether it
is the work of man, or of some inspired person, or whether
it is what we should call revealed. If it were the work
of a person, then, like any other work, it could not establish
a duty, nor could it promise any rewards as a motive for
the performance of any duty; least of all, a reward in
heaven, such as the Veda promises again and again to
those who perform Vedic sacrifices. It follows therefore
either that the Veda has no binding authority at all, or that
it cannot be the work of a personal or human author. This
is a dilemma arising from convictions firmly planted in the
minds of the ancient theologians of India, and it is interest-
ing to see how they try to escape from all the difficulties
arising out of their postulate that the Veda must be the
work of a superhuman or divine author. The subject is
interesting even though the arguments may not be con-
vincing to us. It is clear that even to start such a claim
for any book as being revealed requires a considerable
advance in religious and philosophical thought, and I doubt
whether such a problem could have arisen in the ancient
literature of any country besides India. The Jews, no
doubt, had their sacred books, but these books, though
sacred, were not represented as having been the work of
Jehovah. They were acknowledged to have been com-
posed, if not written down, by historical persons, even if,
as in the case of Moses, they actually related the death
of their reputed author. The Mimamsa philosopher would
probably have argued that as no writer could relate his
own death, therefore Deuteronomy must be considered the
work of a superhuman writer ; and some of our modern
theologians have not been very far from taking the same
view. To the Brahmans, any part of the Veda, even if it
bore a human or historical name, was superhuman, eternal
HAS THE VEDA A SUPERHUMAN ORIGIN?
and infallible, much as the Gospels are in the eyes of
certain Christian theologians, even though they maintain
at the same time that they are historical documents written
down by illiterate people, or by apostles such as St. Mark
or St. John. Let us see therefore how the Mimamsa deals
with this problem of the Apaurusheyatva, i.e. the non-
human origin of the Vedas. Inspiration in the ordinary
sense of the word would not have satisfied these Indian
orthodox philosophers, for, as they truly remark, this would
not exclude the possibility of error, because, however true
the message might be, when given, the human recipient
would always be a possible source of error, as being liable
to misapprehend and misinterpret such a message. Even
the senses, as they point out, can deceive us, so that we
mistake mother-of-pearl for silver ; how much more easily
then may we misapprehend the meaning of revealed
words !
However, the first thing is to see how the Brahmans, and
particularly the Mimamsakas, tried to maintain a super-
human authorship in favour of the Veda.
I quote from Madhava's introduction to his commentary
on the Rig-veda1. He is a great authority in matters
connected with the Pftrva-Mimamsa, having written the
Nyaya-mal&-vistara, a very comprehensive treatise on the
subject. In his introduction he establishes first the authority
of the Mantras and of the Brahmawas, both Yidhis (rules)
and Arthavadas (glosses), by showing that they were per-
fectly intelligible, which had been denied. He then pro-
ceeds to establish the Apaurusheyatva, the non-human
authorship of the Veda, in accordance, as he says, with
(?aimini's Sfttras.
* Some people/ he says, and he means of course the Pftrva-
pakshins, the recognised objectors, ' uphold approximation
towards the Vedas/ that is to say, they hold that as the
Raghuvamsa of KalidAsa and other poems are recent, so
also are the Vedas. The Vedas, they continue", are not
without a beginning or eternal, and hence we find men
quoted in them as the authors of the Vedas. As in the •
J See my Second Edition, vol. i, p. 10.
208 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
case of Vyasa's Mahabharata and Valmiki's Ram&yawa,
Vyasa, Valmiki, &c., are known to be their human authors,
thus in the case of the KltfAaka, Kauthuma, Taittiriya,
and other sections of the Veda, Ka£Aa, &c., are given us as
the names of the authors of these brandies of the Veda ;
and hence it follows that the Vedas were the works of
human authors.
And if it were suggested that such names as Katta, &c.,
were meant for men who did no more than hand down the
oral tradition, like teachers, the Purvapakshin is ready
with a new objection, namely, that the Vedas must be of
human origin, because we see in the Vedas themselves the
mention of temporal matters. Thus we read of a Babara
PravahaTii, of a Kusuruvinda Auddalaki, &t. The Vedas,
therefore, could not have existed in times anterior to these
persons mentioned in them, and hence cannot be prehistoric,
pre-temporal, or eternal. It is seen from this that what is
claimed for the Veda is not only revelation, communicated
to historical persons, but existence from all eternity, and
before the beginning of all time. We can understand there-
fore why in the next Sutra, which is the Siddhanta or final
conclusion, Gaimini should appeal to a former Sutra in
which he established that even the relation of words to
their meanings is eternal. This subject had been discussed
before, in answer to the inevitable Objector-general, the
Purvapakshin, who had maintained that the relation between
words and their meanings was conventional (foWi), estab-
lished by men, and therefore liable to error quite as much
as the evidence of our senses. For as we may mistake
mother-of-pearl for silver, we may surely mistake the
meaningLof words, and hence the meaning of words of the
Veda also. Craimini, therefore, in this place, wishes us first
of all to keep in mind that the words of the Vedas them-
selves are superhuman or supernatural, nay, that sound
itself is eternal ; and thus fortified lie next proceeds to answer
the objections derived from such names as Kanaka, or
Babara PrivahaTM. This is done by showing that K&thn,
did not compose, but only handed down a certain portion
of the Veda, and that Babara PravAhani wa& meant, not as
the name of a man, but as a name of the wind, Babara
HAS THE VEDA A SUPERHUMAN OBtGIN ?
imitating the sound, and Pravahana meaning 'carrying
along/ as it were pro-vehens.
Then follows a new objection taken from the fact that
impossible or even absurd things occur in the Veda; for
instance, we read that trees or serpents performed a sacri-
fice, or that an old ox sang foolish 3 songs fit for the Madras.
Hence it is argued once more that the Veda must have
been made by human beings. But the orthodox traimini
answers, No ; for if it had been made by man, there could
be no injunction for the performance of sacrifices like the
(?yotish£oma, as a means of attaining Svarga or paradise,
because no man could possibly know either the means, or
their effect ; and yet there is this injunction in the case of
the Cryotishfoma, and other sacrifices are not different from
it. Such injunctions as ' Let a man who desires paradise,
sacrifice with the (?yotishtoma ' are not like a speech of
a madman; on the contrary, they are most rational in
pointing out the object (paradise), in suggesting the me"ans
(Soma, &c.), and in mentioning all the necessary subsidiary
acts (Dikshaniya, &c.). We see, therefore, that the com-
mands of the Veda are not unintelligible or absurd. And
if we meet with such passages as that the trees and serpents'
performed certain sacrifices, we must recognise in them
Arthavadas or glosses, conveying in our case indirect laucfo-
tions of certain sacrifices, as if to say, * if even trees an4
serpents perform them, how much more should intelligent
beings do the same ! '
^ As, therefore, no flaws that might arise from human
workmanship can be detected in the Veda, (?aimini concludes
triumphantly that its superhuman origin and its authority
cannot be doubted.
This must suffice to give a general idea of the character
of the Pftrva-Mim&wsa. We may wonder why it should
ever have been raised to the rank of a philosophical system
by the side of the Uttara-Mimamsa or the Vedanta, but it
is its method rather than the matter to which it is applied,
that seems to have invested it with a certain importance.
This Mim&msa method of discussing questions has been
1 On Mftdraka, see Muir, Sansk. Texts, IT, p. 482.
14 P
2IO INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
adopted in other branches of learning also, for instance, by
the highest legal authorities in trying to settle contested
questions • of law. We meet with it in other systems of
philosophy also as the recognised method of discussing
various opinions before arriving at a final conclusion.
Th£re are some curious subjects discussed by (?aimim,
such as what authority can be claimed for tradition, as
different from revelation, how far the recognised customs
of certain countries should be followed or rejected, what
words are to be considered as correct or incorrect. ; or again,
how a good or bad act, after it has been performed, can, in
spite of the lapse of time, produce good or bad results for
the performer. All this is certainly of interest to the
student of Indian literature, but hardly to the student of
philosophy, as such.
Supposed Atheism of I
One more point seems to require our attention, namely.
the charge of atheism that has been brought against
Craiiinni's Mimamsa. This sounds a very strange charge
after what we have seen of the character of this philosophy,
of its regard for the Veda, and the defence of its revealed
character, nay, its insistence on the conscientious observance
of all ceremonial injunctions. Still, it has been broitght
both in ancient and in modern times. So early a philo-
sopher as Kumarila Bhafta tells us that the Mima/msl had
been treated in the world as a Lokayata l, i\ e. an atheistic
system, but that he was anxious to re-establish it as
orthodox. Professor Banerjea2 tells us that Prabhakara
also, the other commentator of the MimawsA, had openly
treated this system as atheistic, and we shall meet with
H passage from the Padrna-Pura-rJa supporting the same
view. However, there seems to be a misunderstanding
here. Atheistic has always meant a great many things,
so much so that even the most pantheistic system that
could be imagined, the Vedanta, has, like that of Spinoza,
1 Lok&ynta is explained by Childor*, P.V., as controversy on fabulous
or alimird points, l«\it in the Ambn////a-Sutta. I, 3, it is mentioned as
forming }>url of the studicfl proper for :i Brahman.
* MUJI, n r, 95.
SUPPOSED ATHEISM OF P$RVA-MlMiU/SA. 21 I
been accused of atheism. The reason is this. The author
of the Vedfinta-Sfttras, Badarayayia. after having established
the omnipresence of Brahman (III, 2, 36-37) by quoting a
number of passages from the Veda, such as ' Brahman is
all this' (Mum/. Up. II, 2, n), 'the Self is all this' (JSfMnd.
Up. VII, 25, 2), proceeds to show (III, 2, 38) that the re-
wards also of all works proceed directly or indirectly from
Brahman. There were, however, two opinions on this
point, one, that the works themselves produce their fruit
without any divine interference, and in cases where the
fruit does not appear at once, that there is a supersensuous
principle, called Ap&rva, which is the direct result of a deed,
and produces fruit at a later time; the other, that all
actions are directly or indirectly requited by the Lord.
The latter opinion, which is adopted by Baaaraya??a, is
supported by a quotation from Brih. Up. IV, 4, 24, ' This is
indeed the great, unborn Self, the giver of food, the giver
of wealth/ (raimini, however, as we are informed by
Badarayaim in the next Sutra, accepted the former opinion.
The command that 'he who IB desirous of the heavenly
world should sacrifice,' implies, as he holds, a reward of
the sacrificer by moans of the sacrifice itself, and not by
any other agent. But how a sacrifice, when it had been
performed and was ended, could produce any reward, is
difficult to understand. In order to explain this, (raimini
assumes that there was a result, viz. an invisible something/
a kind of after-state of a deed or an invisible antecedent,
state of the result, something Apurva or miraculous, which
represented the reward inherent in good works. And ho
adds, that if we supposed that the Lord, himself cancel
rewards and punishments for the acts of men, we should
often have to accuse him of cruelty and partiality; and
that it is better therefore to allow that all works, good or
bad, produce their own results, or, in other words, that for
the moral government of the world no Lord is wanted.
Here, then, we see the real state of the case as between
(raimini and BAdarayatia. ffaimini would not make the
Lord responsible for the injustice that seems to prevail in
the world, and hence reduced everything to rause and
effect, and saw in the inequalities of the world the natural
v 2
212 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
result of the continued action of good or evil acts. This
surely was not atheism, rather was it an attempt to clear
the Lord from those charges of cruelty or undue partiality
which have so often been brought against him. It was
but another attempt at justifying the wisdom of God, an
ancient Theodice'e, that, whatever we may think of it,
certainly did not deserve the name of atheism.
Badarayam, however, thought otherwise, and quoting
himself, he says, c Badaraya?ia thinks the Lord to be the
cause of the fruits of action/ and lie adds that he is even
the cause of these actions themselves, as we may learn
from a well-known Vedic passage (Kaush. Up. Ill, 8) : ' He
makes whomsoever he wishes to lead up from these worlds,
do good deeds; and makes him whom he wishes to lead
down from these worlds, do bad deeds/
Atheism is a charge very freely brought against those
who deny certain characteristics predicated of the Deity,
but do not mean thereby to deny His existence. If the
Mimamsakas were called atheists, it meant no more than
that they tried to justify the ways of God in th£ir own
way. But, once having been called atheists, they were
accused of eve*r so many things. In a passage quoted by
Professor Banerjea from a modern • work, the Vidvan-
modatarangi??,i, we read: 'They say ther^e is no God, or
maker of the world ; nor has the world any sustainer or
destroyer; for every man obtains a recompense in con-
formity with his own works. Neither is there any maker
of the Veda, for its words are eternal, and their arrange-
ment is eternal. Its authoritativeness is self -demonstrated,
for since it has been established from all eternity how can
it be dependent) upon anything but itself ?' This shows
how the Mimamsakas have been misunderstood by the
Vedantists, and how much $amkara is at cross-purposes
with ffaimini. What has happened in this case in India
is what always happens when people resort to names of
abuse rather than to an exchange of ideas. Surely a Deity,
though He does not cause us to act/ and does not Himself
reward or punish us, is not -thereby a non-existent Deity.
Modern Vedantists also are so enamoured of\ their own
conception of Deity, that is, of Brahinan or Atman, that
IS THE PURVA-M1MAJ/SA A SYSTEM 0* PHILgSOPIJY \ 213
they do not hesitate, like Vivekananda, for instance, in his
recent address 011 Practical Vedanta, 1896, to charge those
who differ from himself with atheism. * He is the atheist/
he writes, ' who does not believe in himself. Not believing
in the glory of your own soul is what the Vedanta calls
atheism/
Is the Pfcrva-Mimamsa a system of Philosophy?
Let me say once more that, in allowing a place to the
Purva-Mimamsa among the six systems of Indian Philo-
sophy, 1 was chiefly influenced by the fact that from an
Indian point of view it always held such a place, and that
by omitting it a gap would have been left in the general
outline of the philosophic thought of India. Some native
philosophers go so far as not only to call both systems,
that of Craiinini and Badaraya7ia, by the same name of
Miinamsa, but to look upon them as forming one whole.
They actually take the words in the first Sutra of the
Vedanta-philosophy, 'Now then a desire to know Brahman/
as pointing back to Craimini's Sutras and as thereby im-
plying that the Purva-Mimamsa should be studied first,
and should be followed by a study of the Uttara-Mimamsa
afterwards. Besides, the. authors of the other five systems
frequently refer to Graimini as an independent thinker, and
though his treatment of the sacrificial system of the Veda
would hardly seem to us to deserve the name of a system
of philosophy, "he has nevertheless touched on many a
problem which falls clearly within frhat sphere of thought.
Our idea of a system of philosophy is different from the
Indian conception of a Dar^ana. In its original meaning
philosophy, as a love of wisdom, comes nearest to the
Sanskrit (?ic//7asa, a desire to know, if not a desire to be
wise. If we take philosophy in the sense of an examination
of our means of knowledge (Epistemology), or with Kant
as an inquiry into the limits of human knowledge, there
would be nothing corresponding to it in India. Even the
Vedanta, so far as it is based, not on independent reasoning,
but on the authority .of the >SYruti, would lose with us its
claim to the title of 'philosophy. But we have only to
waive the claim of infallibility put forward by Badaraya/w*
214 INDIAN rillLOBOPHY.
in favour 01 the utterances of the sages of the Upanishads,
and treat them as simple human witnesses to the truth,
and we should then find in the systematic arrangement of
these utterances by Badaraya/ia, a real philosophy, a com-
plete view of the Kosmos in which we live, like those that
have been put forward by the great thinkers of the philo-
sophical countries of the world, Greece, Italy, Germany,
France, and England.
CHAPTER VI
HAVING explored two of the recognised systems of Indian
philosophy, so far as it seemed necessary to a general survey
of the work done by the ancient thinkers of India, we must
now return and enter once more into the densely outaugled
and almost impervious growth of thought from which aii
the high roads leading towards real and definite systems
of philosophy have emerged, brandling oft in different
directions. One of these and, as it seems to me, by j'a-r the
most important for the whole intellectual development of
India, the Vedanta, has been mapped out by us at least in
its broad outlines.
It seemed to me undesirable to enter here on an examina-
tion of what has been called the later Vedtmta which can
bo studied in such works as the Pau&ada&i or the Vedanta -
Sara, and in many popular treatises both in prose and in
verse.
&ater Yed&nta mixed with S&wfcfcye,,
It would be unfair and unhistorical, however, to look
upon this later development of the Vedanta as aiinply
a deterioration of1 the old philosophy. Though it 'is cer-
tainly rather confused, if compared with the system as laid
down in the old Vedanta-Sutras, it represents to us what
in the course of time became of the Vedanta, when taught
and discussed in the dijierent schools of philosophy in
medieval and modern India. What strikes us most in it is
the mixture of Vedaata ideas with ideas borrowed chiefly,
a.s it would vse^m, from Sfu/tkhya, but also from Yoga, and
Nyaya sources. 15ut here again it is difficult to decide
whether such ideas were actually borrowed from these
systems in their finished state, or whether they were
originally common property which in later times only had
restricted to one or the other of the six systems of
2l6 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
philosophy. In the Pa 7/cadasi, for instance, we meet with
the idea of Prakriti, nature, which we are accustomed to
consider as the peculiar property of the Samkhya-system.
This Prakriti is said there to be the reflection, or, as we
should say, the shadow of Brahman, and to be possessed of
the three Gu?ias or elements of goodness, passion, and
darkness, or, as they are sometimes explained, of good,
indifferent, and bad. This theory of the three Gunas, how-
ever, is altogether absent from the original Vedanta ; t at
least, it is not to be met with in the purely Vedantic
Upanishadfc, occurring for the first time in the $vetasvatara
Upanishad. Again in the later Vedanta works Avidya
and Maya are used synonymously, or, if distinguished from
one another, they are supposed to arise respectively from
the more or less pure character of their substance 1. The
omniscient, but personal Isvara is there explained as a
reflection of Maya, but as having subdued her, while the
individual soul, Pr%/7a or (?iva, is represented as having
been subdued by Avidya, and to be multiform, owing to
the variety of Avidya. The individual soul, being endowed
with a causal or subtle body, believes that body to be its
own, and hence error and suffering in all their variety.
As to the development of the world, we are toM that it was
by the command of tsvara that Prak?^ti, when dominated
by darkness, produced the elements of ether, air, fire, water
and earth, all meant to be enjoyed, that is, to be experienced
by the individual souls.
In all this we c<;n hardly be mistakeh if we recognise
the influence of S&mkhya ideas, obscuring and vitiating
the monism of the Vedanta, pure and simple. In that
philosophy there is no room for a Second, or for a Prakriti,
nor for the three Gurtas, nor for anything real by the side
of Brahumn.
Hrw that influence wa« exercised we cannot discover,
and it is possible that in ujicient times already there existed
this iuiluenee of one philosophical system upon the other,
for we set; ev^n in some of the Upaniehads a certain
1 I translate Suttva hero by subst»nce>f** the context hardly allows
that wo should take it for the Guna of goodness
LATER VEDANTA MIXED WITH SAlfXHYA. 21 7
mixture of what we should afterwards have to call the
distinctive teaching* of Vedanta, Samkhya, or Yoga- philo-
sophy. We must remember that in India the idea of
private property in any philosophic truth did hardly exist.
The individual, as we saw before, was of little consequence,
and could never exercise the same influence which such
thinkers as Socrates or Plato exercised in Greece. If the
descriptions of Indian life emanating from the Indians
themselves, and from other nations they came in contact
with, whether Greek conquerors or Chinese pilgrims, can
be trusted, we may well understand that truth, or what
was taken to be truth, was treated not as private, but as
common property. It' there was an exchange of ideas
among the Indian seekers after truth, it was far more in
the nature of co-operation towards a common end, than in
the assertion of any claims of originality or priority by
individual teachers. That one man should write and
publish his philosophical views in a book, and that another
should read and criticise that book or carry on the work
where1 it had been left, was never thought of in India in
ancient times. If A. referred to B. often, as they say, from
mere civility, Pujartham, B. would refer to A., but no one
would ever say, as so often happens with us, that he had
anticipated the discovery of another, or that some one else
had stolen his ideas. Truth was not an article that, accord-
ing to Hindu ideas, could ever be stolen. All that could
happen and did happen was that certain opinions which
had been discussed, sifted, and generally received in one
Asrama, hermitage, Arama, garden, or Parishad, religious
settlement, would in time be collected by its members and
reduced to a more or less systematic form. What that
form was in early times we may see from the Brahrnafias,
and more particularly from the Upanishuds, i.e. Seances,
gatherings of pupils round their teachers, or later on from
the Sutras. It cannot be doubted that these Sutras pre-
suppose, by their systematic form, a long continued in-
tellectual labour; nay it seems to me difficult to account
for their peculiar literary form except on the ground that
they were meant to be learnt by heart and to be accom-
panied from the very beginning by 9 running commentary.
2l8 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
without which they would have been perfectly unintel-
ligible. I suggested once before that this very peculiar
style of the Sutras would receive the best historical expla-
nation, if it could be proved that they represent the tirst
attempts at writing for literary purposes in India. What-
ever the exact date may be of the introduction of a &inis-
trorsum and dextroraum alphabet for epigraphie purposes
in India (and in .spite of all efforts not a single inscription
has as yet been discovered that can be referred with cer-
tainty to the period before Asoka, third century B.C.), every
classical scholar knows that there always is a long interval
between an epigraphic and a literary employment of the
alphabet. People forget that a period marked by 'written
literary compositions requires a public, and a large public,
which is able to read, for where there is no demand there
is no supply. IS1 or must we forget that the old .system of
a mnemonic literature, the Paramparii, was invested with
a. kind of sacred character, and would not have been easily
surrendered. The old mnemonic system was upheld by
a strict discipline which formed the principal part of the
established system of education in India, as has been fully
described in the PrMieakhyas. They explain to us by
what process, whatever existed at thai time of literature,
cliieiiy sacred, was firmly imprinted on the mewicry of the
young. These young pupils were in fact the books, the
scribes were the Gurus, the tablet Was the brain* We can
hardly imagine such a state of literature, and the transition
from it to a written literature must have marked a new
start in the intellectual life of the people at large, or at
least of the educated classes. Anybody who has come in
contact with the Pandits of India has been able to observe
the wonderful feats that can be achieved by that mnemonic
discipline even at present, though it is dying out before
our wyptf al the approach of printed books, nay of printed
editions of their own sacred texts. I need hardly say that
even if Biihler's idea of the introduction of a Semitic
alphabet into India by n«eans of commercial travellers
about 800 or 1000 B.C. wore more than a hypothesis, it
would not prove the existence of a written literature at
that time. The adaptation of a Semitic alphabet to the
RELATIVE AGE OF PHILOSOPHIES AND SUTliAS. 2 19
phonetic system as elaborated in the Prati*akhyas may
date from the third, possibly from the fourth century u.c.,
but the use of that alphabet for inscriptions begins in the
middle of the third century only; and though we cannot
deny the possibility of its having been ustd for literary
purposes at the same time, such possibilities would form
very dangerous landmarks in the chronology of Indian
literature.
But whatever the origin of the peculiar Sutra-literature
may have been — and I give my hypothesis as a hypothesis
only — all scholars will probably agree that these Sutras
could not be the work oi: one individual philosopher, but
that we have in them the last outcome of previous centuries
of thought, and the final result of the labours of numerous
thinkers whose name** are forgotten and will never be,
recovered.
Relative Age of Philosophies and
If we keep this in mind, we shall ECO that the question
whetlier any of the texts of the six philosophies which we
now possess should be considered as older than any other,
is really a question impossible to answer. The tests for
settling the relative ages of literary works, applicable
to European literature, are not applicable to Indian
literature. Thus, if one Greek author quotes another,
we feel justified in taking the one who is quoted as the
predecessor or contemporary of the one who quoees. But
because (rainuni quotes BMarayana and Btularayawa
traimini, and because their systems show an acquaintance
with the other five systems of philosophy, we have no
right to arrange them in chronological succession. Karmda,
who is acquainted with Kapihi, is clearly criticised by
Kapila, at least in our Kupi la-Sutras. Kapiki, to whom
the Sitmkhya-Sutras are ascribed, actaally adopts one of
Badavay aria's Sutras, IV, s, i, and inserts it tut Idem verb is
in his own work, IV, 3. He does the same for the Yoga-
Sutras I, 5 and II, 46, which occur in II, 33, III, 34, and
VI, 24 in the Samkhya-Sutrus which wo possess, . Kanada
was clearly acquainted with Goiama, while Gotama attacks
in turn certain doctrines of KapJ;= : Badar&yami. It
22O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
has been supposed, because Pata7tgali ignores all other
systems, that therefore he was anterior to all of them l.
But all such conclusions, which would be perfectly legiti-
mate in Greek and Latin literature, have no weight what-
ever in the literary history of India, because during its
mnemonic period anything could be added and anything
left out, before each system reached the form in which we
possess it.
Age of Kapila- Sutras.
The Sutras of Kapila, which have come down to us, are
so little the work of the founder of that system, that it
would be far safer to treat them as the last arrangement
of doctrines accumulated in one philosophical school during
centuries of Parampara or tradition. • It is easy to see that
the, Yoga-philosophy presupposes a Samkhya-philosophy,
but while Pata;7</ali, the reputed author of Yoga-Sutras
has been referred to the second century B.C., it is now
generally admitted that our Samkhya-Sutras cannot be
earlier than the fourteenth century A.D. It is necessary
to distinguish carefully between the six philosophies as so
many channels of thought, and the Sutras which embody
their teachings and have been handed down to us as the
earliest documents within our reach. Yoga, as a technical
term, occurs earlier than the name of any other system of
philosophy. It occurs in the Taittiriya and Ka^a Upani-
shads, and ia mentioned in as early an authority as the
Asvalayana-GHhya-Sutras. In the Maitray. Up. VI, 10 we
meet even with Yogins. But it by no means follows that
the Yoga, known in those early times, was the same as
what we possess in Pata;/£/ali's Sutras of the Yoga-philo-
sophy. We look in vain in the so-called classical Upanishads
for the names of either Sfimkhya or Vedanta, but Samkhya,
occurs in the compound Samkhya-Yoga in the /Svetfu>vatara
Up. VI, 13 and in several of the minor Upanidiads. It
should be observed that Vedanta also occurs for the first
time in the Maine SVet&tfVatara VI, 22, and afterwards in
the smaller Upanishads. All such indications may become
valuable hereafter for chronological purposes. In the
1 Rajondralal Mitra, I.e., p. xviii.
AGE OF KAPILA-SUTRAS. 221
Bhagavad-gita II, 39 we meet with the Samkhya as the
name of a system of philosophy and likewise as a name of
its adherents, V, 5.
As to our Samkhya-Sutras their antiquity was first
shaken by Dr. FitzEdward Hall. Va/caspati Misra, the
author of the Samkhya-tattva-Kaumudi, who, according
to Professor Garbe, can be safely referred to about 1 150 A. D.,
quotes not a single Sutra from our Samkhya-Sutras, but
appeals to older authorities only, such as Pa>~fca.sikha, Var-
shaganya, and the Rar/avartika. Even Madhava about
13^0 A.D., who evidently knew the Sutras of the other
systems, never quotes from our Samkhya-Sutras ; and why
not, if they had been in existence in his time ?
But we must not go too far. It by no means follows
that every one of the Sutras which we possess in the body
of the Samkhya-Sutras, and the composition of which is
assigned by Balasastrin to so late a period as the sixteenth
century, is of that modern date. He declares that they
were all composed by the well-known Vigwana-Bhikshu
who, a*s was then the fashion, wrote also a commentary on
them. It is quite possible that our Sa?/ikhya-Sutras may
only be what we should call the latest recension of the
old Sutras. We know that in India the oral tradition of
certain texts, as, for instance, the Sfttras of Pa/mni, was
interrupted for a time and then restored again, whether
from scattered MSS., or from the recollection of less forget-
ful or forgotten individuals. If that was the case, as we
know, with so voluminous a work as the MahabMshya;
why should not certain portions of the Samkhya-Sutras
have been preserved here and there, and have been added
to or remodelled from time to time, till they me"et us at
last in their final form, at so late a date as the fourteenth
or even the sixteenth century ? It was no doubt a great
shock to those who stood up for the great antiquity of
Indian philosophy, to have to confess that a work for
which a most remote date had always been claimed, may not
be older than the time of Des Cartes, at least in that final
literary form in which it has reached us. But if we con-
sider the circumstances of the case, it is more than possible
that our Sfttras of the Samkhya-philosophy contain some
222 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
of the most ancient as well as the most modern Sfttras,
the utterances of Kapila, Asuri, Pav/raakha and Varslia-
gawya, as well as those of Isvara-Krishna and even of
Vi<///ana-Bhi kshu.
SAmkhya-kArik&s.
But if WQ must accept so very modern a date for our.
Kapila-Sutras, we are fortunate in being able to assign
a much earlier and much more settled date to another
work which for centuries seems to have formed the recog-
nised authority for the followers of the Samkhya in India,
the so-called Samkhya-karikas or the sixty-nine or seventy
Versus memoriales of ts vara- Krishna (with three supple-
mentary ones, equally ascribed to that author). That these
Karikas are older than our Sutras could easily be proved
by passages occurring among the Sutras, which are almost
literally taken from the Karikas 1,
Alberuni, who wrote his account of India in the first
half of the eleventh century, was well acquainted not only
with Is vara-Kr /shea's work, but likewise, as has been
shown, with Gaudlapada's commentary on it*. Nay, we
can even make another step backward. For the Samkhya-
karikas exist in a Chinese translation also, made by
/fari-ti (lit. true truth),- possibly Paramartha, a Tripifaka
law-teacher of the Kit an dynasty, A.D. ^57 to 589 (not
583). Paramartha carne to China in about 547 A.D. in the
reign of the Emperor Wu-ti of the LiaH dynasty which
ruled in Southern China from 502 to 557 A.D.3, and was
followed by the Khun dynasty. He lived till 582 A. p.;
and there are no less than twenty-eight of his translations
now in existence, that of the Suvar/m-Saptati-sastra being
the twenty-seventh (No. 1,300 in B. Nanjio's Catalogue).
The name given to it in Chinese, 'the Golden Seventy
Discourse/ is supposed to fefer to the number of verses in
the Karika. K&n-ti was not considered a good Chinese
scholar, and his translation of the Abhidhaiina-Kosha-
•sastra, for instance, had in consequence to be replaced by
a new translation by flioucn-thsang.
1 Sco Hall, Sawzkhya-Sfira, p. ra ; Dcus§on, VodAntn, p. 361.
* Garl>o, Siimkhya uinl Yoga, p. 7.
3 S«H' Mayor's Chinese Reader's Manual, which gives the ex.ict dates.
DATS OF GATLDAPADA, 223
But though we are thus enabled to assign the Samkhya-
karika to the sixth century A.D., it by no means follows
that this work itself did not exist before that time. Na-
tive tradition, we are told, assigns his work to the first
century B.C.
Pate of
But even here new difficulties arise with regard to the
age of GawZapada, the author of the commentary on the
Karikas. This commentary also, so we were informed by
Beal, had been translated into Chinese before 582 A. D. ;
but how is that possible without upsetting the little we
know of GaucZapada's date, tfamkara is represented as
the pupil of Govihda who was the pupil of Gaurfapada.
But jS'awkara's literary career began, as is generally
supposed, about 788 A.B. How then could he have been
the literary grandson of Ganrfapada, and son or pupil of
Goviuda ? As Mr. Beal could no longer be consulted
I asked one of my Chinese pupils, .the late Mr. Kasa-
wara,*to translate portions of the Chinese commentary for
me ; but the specimens he sent me did not suffice to settle
the question whether it was really a translation of Gaurfa-
pada's commentary. It is but right to state here that
Telang in the Indian Antiquary, XIII, 95, places Sawkara
much earlier, in 590 A.D., and that Fleet, in the Indian
Antiquary, Jan., .1887, assigns 630 to 65.5 as the latest date
to King Yrishadeva of Nepal who is said to have received
Samkara at his court, and actually to have given the name
of $a?;ikaradeva to his son in honour of the philosopher.
In order to escape from ail these uncertainties I wrote once
more to Japan to another pupil of mine, Dr. Takakusu, and
he, after carefully collating the Chinese translation with the
Sanskrit commentary of Gaurfapada, informed me that the
Chinese translation of the commentary was not, and could
not in any sense be called, a translation of Gaua'apada's com-
mentary. So much trouble may be caused by one unguarded
expression I Anyhow this difficulty is now removed, and
/Samkara's date need not be disturbed. The author of the
Kfcrikas informs us at the end of his work that this philo-
sophy, proclaimed by the greatest sage, i. e. Kapila, had
224 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
been communicated by him to Asuri, by Asuri to Paw&a-
sikha, and, as the Tattva-samasa adds, from Pa/7&asikha to
Pata/?</ali l, and had been widely taught until, by an unin-
terrupted series of teachers, it reached even tsvara- Krishna,2.
He calls it the Shashtfi-tantra, the Sixty-doctrine. A simi-
lar account is given by Paramartha in his comment on the
first verse, c Kipila (Kapila),' he says, ' was a JS/shi descended
from the sky and was endowed with the four virtues,
dutifulness (Dharma), wisdom (Pra<y/~a), separation from
desires (Vairagya), and freedom (Mpksha). He saw a
Brahman of the name of O-shu-li (Asuri) who had been
worshipping heaven or ^ the Devas for a thousand years,
and said to him : " O Asuri, art thou satisfied with the
state of a Grihastha or householder ? " After a thousand
years he came again, and Asuri admitted that he was
satisfied with the state of a Grihastha. He then came a
third time to Asuri, whereupon Asuri quitted the state of
a householder and became a pupil of Kapila/ These may
be mere additions made by Paramartha,A but they show, at
all events, that to him also Kapila and Asuri were persons
of a distant past.
Tattva-samasa.
But however far the Karikas of Isvara-Krishna may go
back, they are what they are, a metrical work in the style
of a later age, an age that gave rise to other Karikas like
Bhartrihari's (about 650 A.D.) Karikas on grammar.
Everybody has wondered, therefore, what could have be-
come of the real Sarakhya-Sutras, if they ever existed ; or,
if they did not, why there should never have been such
Sutras for so important a system of philosophy as the
Samkhya. There is clearly a great gap between the end
of the Upanishad period and the literary period that was
able to give rise to the metrical work of Isvara -Krishna.
In what form could the Samkhya:philosophy have existed
in that interval °
To judge from analogy we should certainly say, in the
1 This would scorn to place the Tnttva-samnsa later than Pataw^nli.
2 See Karika, w. 70, 71.
TATTVA-SAMASA. 225
form of Sfttras, such as were handed down for other
branches of learning by oral tradition. The Karikas them-
selves presuppose such a tradition quite as much as the
much later Sutras which we possess. They are both mea«t'
to recapitulate what existed, never to originate what we
should call new and original thoughts. When we see the
K&rikas declare that they leave out on purpose the Akha-
yikas, the illustrative stories contained in the fourth book
of our Sfttras, this cannot prove their posteriority to the
Sutras as we have them ; but it shows that at tsvara-
Krishn&'s time there existed a body of S&mkhya-philosophy
which contained such stories a$ we find in our modern
Sfttras, but neither in tfye Karikas nor in the Tattva-
samasa. Besides these stories other things also were omitted
by Isvara- Krishna, comprehended under the name of Para-
vada, probably controversies, such as those on the necessity
of an Isvara.
Under these circumstances I venture to say that such
a work in Sfttras not only existed, but that we are in
actual possession of it, namely in the text of the much
neglected Tattva-sam&sa. Because it contains a number
of new technical terms, it has been put down at once as
modern, as if what is new to us must be new chronolo-
gically also. We know far* too little of the history of the
Samkhya to justify so confident a conclusion. Colebrooke l
told us long ago that, if the scholiast of Kapila 2 may be
trusted, and why should he not ? the Tattva-samasa was
the proper text-book of the Samkhya-philosophy. It was
a* mere accident that he, Colebrooke, could not find a copy
of it. ' Whether that Tattva-sarnasa of Kapila be extant/
he wrote, ' or whether the Sfttras of Pau&agikha be so, is
not certain/ And again he wrote : ' It appears from the
Preface of the Kapila-bh­a that a more compendious
tract in the form of Sfttras or aphorisms, bears the title
of Tattva-samasa, and is ascribed to the same author, i. e. to
Kapila.
I admit that the introductory portion of this tract sounds
modern, and probably is so, but I find no other marks of
1 Essays, I, p. 244.
1 Samkhya -prava/rana-bhashya, pp. 7, no.
15 Q
226 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
a modern date in the body of the work. On the contrary
there are several indications in it of its being an earlier
form of the Samkhya-philosophy than what we possess in
the Karikas or in the Sfttras. When it agrees with the
Karikas, sometimes almost verbatim, it is the metrical
text that seems to me to presuppose the prose, not the
prose the metrical version. In the Sutras themselves we
find no allusion as yet to the atheistic or non-theistic doc-
trines which distinguish the later texts of the Samkhya,
and which are still absent from the Samkhya-karikas also.
The so-called Aisvaryas or superhuman powers, which are
recognised in the Tattva-samasa, might seem to presuppose
the recognition of an Isvara, though this is very doubtful ;
but the direct identification of Purusha with Brahman in
the Tattva-sarnasa points certainly to an earlier and less
pronounced Nirisvara or Lord-less character of the ancient
Samkhya. It should also be mentioned that Vi(//?ana-
Bhikshu, no mean authority on such matters, and even
supposed by some tb have been himself the author of our
modern Samkhya-Sutras, takes it for granted that the
Tattva-samasa was certainly prior to the Kapila-Sutras
which we possess. For why should he defend Kapila, and
not the author of the Tattva-samasa, against the charge of
Punarukti or giving us a mere useless repetition, and why
should he have found no excuse for the existence of the
Kapila-Sutras except that they are short and complete,
while the Tattva-samasa is short and compact l ?
Not being able to find a MS. of the Tattva-samasa Cole-
brooke decided to translate instead the Samkhya-karikas,
and thus it came to pass that most scholars have been
under the impression that in India also this metrical ver-
sion was considered as the most authoritative and most
popular manual oi: the Samkhya-philosophy. This is the
way in which certain prepossessions arise. We have learnt
since from Ballantyne - that at Benares, where he resided,
these Karikas were hardly known at all except to those
who had seen Professor Wilson's English edition of them,
1 Sawkhya-pravatoma-bhashya, Introduction.
2 Drift of the Samkhya, p. i.
TATTVA-SAMASA. 2 27
while the Tattva-samasa was well known to all the native
assistants whom he employed. Nor can we doubt that in
the part of India best known to Ballantyne it was really
an important and popular work, if we consider the number
of commentaries written on it *, and the frequency of 'allu-
sions to it which occur in other commentaries. The com-
mentary published by Baltantyne is, if I understand him
rightly, anonymous. It gives first what it calls the Sam-
khya-Sutra/tti, and then the Samasakhya-siitra-vrzttiA.
Hall, 1. c., p. 13, quotes one commentary by Kshemananda,
called Samkhya-kramadipika, but it is not quite clear to
me whether this is the same as the one published by
Ballantyne, nor have I had access to any other MSS.
We must not forget that in modern times the Samkhya-
philosophy has ceased to be popular in several parts of
India. Even in the sixteenth century VigrMna-Bhikshu,
in his commentary on the Samkhya-SMras (v. 5), complains
that it has been swallowed up by the sun of the time, and
that but a small part of the moon of knowledge remained ;
while in the Bhagavata Purarta I, 3, io,-tlie S&mkhya is
spoken of as K&la-vipluta, destroyed by £ime. Professor
Wilson told me that, during the whole of his intercourse
with learned natives, he met with one Br&hman only who
professed to be acquainted with the writings of this philo-
sophical school, and Professor Bhandarkar (1. c., p. 3) states
that the very name of Samkhya-prava&ana was unknown
on his side of India. Hence we may well understand that
S&mkhya MSS. are scarce in India, and entirely absent in
certain localities. It is possible also that the very small-
ness of the Tattva-samasa may have lowered it in the eyes
of native scholars, and that in time it may have been
eclipsed by its more voluminous commentaries. But if we
accept it as what it professes to be, and what, up to the
time of Vi(/fl£lna-Bhikshu at least, it was considered to be
in India, it seems to me just the book that was wanted to
fill the gap to which I referred before. By itself it would
fill a few pages only. In fact it is a mere enumeration of
topics, and, as such, it would agree very well with the
1 Five are mentioned by Hall in his Preface, p. 33.
Q 2
22% INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
somewhat puzzling name of S£mkhya, which means no
more than enumeration. All other derivations of this title
seem far-fetched1 as compared with this. According to
Vigw&na-Bhikshu in his commentary on the Sfttras (pp. 6<
TIO, ed. Hall), both the S^mkhya-Sfttras and the Yoga-
Sfttras are really mere developments of the Tattva-sam&sa-
Sutras. Both are called therefore Sarakhya-prava&ana,
exposition of the Samkhya, the latter adding the peculiar
arguments in support of the existence of an Isvara or
Supreme Lord, and therefore called Sesvara, in opposition
to the SHrakhya, which is called An-tsvara, or Lord-less.
And here it is important to remark also that the name
of Shashti-tantra, the Doctrine of the Sixty, which is given
by tsvara-Krislwa, or at all events by the author of the
72nd of his K£rik£s, should occur and be accounted for in
the Tattva-samasa, as containing the 17 (enumerated in 64
and 65), and the 33, previously exhibited in 62 and 63,
together with the 10 Mulikarthas or fundamental facts
which together would make up the sixty topics of the
Shashti-tantra. At the end of the 25 great topics of the
Tattva-sam&sa we find the straightforward declaration :
' Iti tattva-sam&sllkhya-samkhya-sutr^Tii/ Here end the
S£mkhya-Sfttras called Tattva-sam&sa.
At first sight, no doubt, Sam&sa seems to mean a mere
abstract; but Sam&sa may be used also in opposition to
Brihat, and there is no other work in existence of which
it could be called an abstract, certainly not either of the
Karikas or of the modern Sfttras, such as we possess them.
The whole arrangement is different from the other and
more recent treatments of Samkhya-philosophy. The three
kinds of pain, for instance, which generally form the
starting-point of the whole system, are relegated to the
very end as a separate topic. We meet with technical
subjects and technical terms which are not to be found at
all in other and, as it would seem, more modern S&rakhya
works. The smallness of the Tattva-samasa can hardly be
used as an argument against its ever having been an
1 They are mentioned in the Preface to Hall's edition of the Sawikhya-
prava&ana-bhftshya, 1856. Some of them are mere definitions without
any attempt at etymology.
ANTERIORITY OF VEDANTA OR SAJfKHYA. 22Q
important work, for we find similar short, yet old Sutra-
works, for instance, the Sarvanukrama and other Anukra-
rnanis described in my History of Ancient Sanskrit Litera-
ture1. However, in matters of this kind we must avoid
being too positive either in denying or asserting tfye age
and authenticity of Sanskrit texts. All I can say is that
there is ho mark of modern age in their language, though
the commentary is, no doubt, of a later date. What weighs
with me is the fact that Indian Pandits* evidently con-
sidered the Tattva-sainasa-Sfttras as the original outlines
of the Samkhya-philosophy, while the idea that they are
a later spurious production rests, as far as I can see at
present, on no real argument whatever.
Anteriority of VedAnta or S&mkhya.
It must be clear from all, this how useless it would be,
with the limited means at our disposal, to attempt to prove
the anteriority either of the Vedanta or of the Samkhya,
as systems of philosophy, and as distinguished from the
Sutras in which we possess them. External or historical
evidence we have none, and internal evidence, though it
may support a suggestion, can but seldom amount to
positive proof. We can understand how, out of the seeds
scattered about in the Upanishads, there could arise in
time the S3Tstematic arrangement and final representation
of systems such as have been handed down to us in the
Sutras or the Vedanta, the Samkhya, and the other schools.
It cannot be denied that in the Upanishad period Vedantic
ideas are certainly more prevalent than those of the
Sar/ikhya. I go even a step further and admit that the
Samkhya-philosophy may have been a kind of toning
down of the extreme Monism of the Advaita Vedanta.
I think we can enter into the misgivings and fears of
those who felt startled by the unflinching Monism of the
Vedanta, at least as interpreted by the school which was
represented rather than founded by $amkara. Now, the
two points which are most likely to have caused difficulty
1 These Anukramas have 'jfeen very carefully published in the Anecdota
Oxonierisia by Professor Macdonell, to whom I had handed over my
materials
23O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
or given offence to ordinary consciences, would seem to have
been the total denial of what is meant by the reality of
the objective world, and the required surrender of all
individuality on the part of the subject, that is, of our-
selves. These are the points which seem most startling
even to ourselves, and it is quite possible that they may
have given rise to another system free from these startling
doctrines, such as we find in the Samkhya. They certainly
formed the chief stumbling-block to Eamanu^a and those
who had come before him, such as Bodhayana and other
Purva/caryas, and led them to propound their own more
human interpretation of the Vedanta, though sacrificing
the Isvara in order to save the reality of each Purusha.
These conflicting views of the world, of the soul, and of
God, emerge already in the Upanishads ; and in a few of
them, the Svetasvatara, Maitray., and Ka£Aa Upanishads,
for instance, there are utterances that come very near to
what we know as Samkhya rather than Vedaiita doctrines.
Vedanta ideas preponderate, however, so decidedly in the
Upanishad literature, that we can well understand that in
the oral tradition of the schools the Samkhya doctrines
should have exercised a limited influence only, whatever
favour they may have found with those who were repelled
by the extreme views of the monistic Vedanta. The fol-
lowers of Kapila had an advantage over the Vedantists in
admitting a Prakriti, or a something objective, independent
of Brahman or Purusha, though called into life and activity
by the look of Purusha only, and disappearing when that
look ceased. They were also less opposed to the common
consciousness of mankind in admitting the reality of indi-
vidual souls. Dualism is always more popular than rigorous
Monism, and the Samkhya was clearly dualistic when it
postulated nature, not only as the result of Avidya or
Maya, but as something real in the ordinary sense of that
word, and when it allowed to the individual souls or (rivas
also an independent character. It should be remembered
that the denial of an Isvara or personal Lord did not
probably form part of the original Samkhya, as presented
to us in the Tattva-samasa. It would seem therefore that
on these very important points the Samkhya was more
ATHEISM AND ORTHODOXY. 23!
conciliatory and less defiant to the common sense of man-
kind than the Vedanta, and though this is far from proving
that it was therefore posterior to the Vedanta in its severest
form, it might well be accepted as an indication that these
two streams of thought followed parallel courses, starting
from a common fund of ancient Vedic thoughts, but diverg-
ing afterwards, the Vedanta unflinchingly following its
straight course, the other, the Samkhya, avoiding certain
whirlpools of thought which seemed dangerous to the
ordinary swimmer. To the people at large it would natur-
ally seem as if the Vedanta taught the oneness of all indi-
vidual souls or subjects in Brahman, and the illusory
character of all that is objective, while the Samkhya
allowed at all events the temporary reality of the objec-
tive world and the multiplicity of individual souls. Of
course, we must leave it an open question for the present
whether the extreme monistic view of the Veda was due to
$amkara, or whether, like Ramanu^a, he also could claim
the authority of Purva/caryas in his interpretation of Bada-
rayav<a's Sutras. If that were so, the difference between
the two systems would certainly seem to be irreconcilable,
while minor differences between them would in India at
least admit of a friendly adjustment.
Atheism and Orthodoxy.
Even on what seems to us so vital a point in every
philosophy as theism or atheism, Indian philosophers seem
to have been able to come to an understanding and a com-
promise. We must remember that in the eyes of the
Brahmans the Samkhya is atheistic and yet orthodox.
This seems to us impossible ; but the fact is that orthodoxy
has a very different meaning in India from what it has
with us. What we mean by orthodoxy was with them
not much more than a recognition of the supreme authority
of the Veda. The Samkhya, whatever we may think of
its Vedic character, never denies the authority of the Veda
in so many words, though it may express a less decided
submission to it. Whether in its origin the Samkhya was
quite independent of the. "Veda, is difficult to say. Some
scholars think that the recognition of the supreme authority
232 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
of the $ruti was an afterthought with Kapila, a mere stroke
of theological diplomacy. But if so, we should be forced
to admit that the Samkhya philosophers wished, by means
of this diplomacy, to be raised to the same position which
others, such as the Vedantists, had occupied before them ;
and so far it might seem to indicate the posteriority of the
Samkhya, as a system of philosophy.
It is important here to remember that the Samkhya not
only declared for the authority of the Veda, but had never
openly rejected it, like B?*ihaspati or Buddha. It is quite
another question whether it really carried out the spirit of
the Veda, particularly of the Upanishads. That $amkara,
the great defender of Vedantism, should deny the correct-
ness of the interpretation of the Veda, adopted by Kapila,
proves after all no more than that a difference of opinion
existed between the two, but it would show at the same
time that Kapila, as well as $amkara, had tried to repre-
sent his philosophy as supported by passages from the
Veda. To judge from a passage in the beginning of the
Samkhya-karikas it might seem indeed that Kapila placed
his own philosophy above the Veda. But he really says
no more there than that certain remedies for the removal
of pain, enjoined by the Veda, are good, and that other
remedies enjoined by philosophy are likewise good ; but
that of the two the latter are better, that is, more efficacious
(Tattva Kaumudi, v. 2). This does not affect the authority
of the Veda as a whole, as compared with philosophy or
human knowledge. We must not forget that after all it is
$ruti or revelation itself which declares that all remedies
are palliative only, and that real freedom (Moksha) from
all suffering can be derived from philosophical knowledge
only, and that this is incomparably higher than sacrifices or
other meritorious acts (Samkhya-prava&ana I, 5).
Authority of the Veda.
What authority Kapila assigns to the Veda may be
gathered from what he says about the three possible
sources of knowledge, perception, inference, and Apta-
vafcana, that is the received, correct, or tr-ue word, or, it
may be, the word of a trustworthy person. He explains
SAJHKHYA HOSTILE TO PRIESTHOOD. 233
Aptavafcana in v. 5 by Aptasruti, which clearly means
received revelation or revelation from a trustworthy source.
However the commentators may differ, /Sruti can here mean
the Veda only, though, no doubt, the Veda as interpreted
by Kapila. And that the Veda is not only considered as
equal to sensuous perception and inference, but is placed by
him on an even higher pedestal, is shown by the fact that
Ka.pila (Sutras V, 51) declares it to be self-evident, SvataA-
pramaTiam, while perception and inference are not, but are
admitted to be liable to error and to require confirmation.
Though it is true, therefore, that with the true Samkhya
philosopher the Veda does not possess that superhuman
authority which is ascribed to it by Badarayana, I cannot
bring myself -to believe that this concession on the part of
Kapila was a mere artifice to escape the fate which, for
instance, befell Buddha. There are many passages where
Kapila appeals quite naturally to $ruti or revelation In
I, 36 he appeals to both /Sruti and Nyaya, reason)}^, out in
many places he appeals to /Sfruti alone. That rwjlation is
to be looked upon as superior to experience or sensuous
perception is stated by him in so many words in I, 147,
where we read 'There is no denial of what is established
by $ruti.' Again, when the Nyaya philosophy tries to
establish by reasoning that the organs of sense are formed
of the elements, Kapila squashes the whole argument by
a simple appeal to $ruti. ' They cannot be so formed/ he
says, ' because /Sruti says that they are formed of Aham-
kara, self-consciousness (II, 20) V
Other passages where the authority of Sruti is invoked
as paramount by Kapila, or supposed to be so by the com-
mentator, may be found in Samkhya-Sutras I, 36 ; 77 ; 83 ;
147; 154; II, ao; 23; III, 15; 80; IV, 22; &c.
S&mkhya hostile to Priesthood.
There is one passage only in which a decidedly hostile
feeling towards the Brahmanic priesthood may be dis-
covered in Kapila's Sutras, and it seems full of meaning.
Among the different kinds of bondage to which men are
1 But are not the elements mere Vikaras of Ahawkara?
234 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
liable, but ought not to be, is one called Dakshma-bandha,
bondage arising from having to offer gifts to priests, which
seems to be condemned as superstitious and mischievous l.
As springing from the great mass of philosophic thought
accumulated in the Upanishads, the Samkhya, like the
Vedanta-philosophy, was probably at first considered as
neither orthodox nor unorthodox. It was simply one out
of many attempts to solve the riddle of the world, and even
the fact that it did not appeal to a personal Lord or creator,
was evidently at first not considered sufficient to anathe-
matise it as unorthodox or un-Vedic. It was probably at
a much later time when the Vedanta and other systems had
already entrenched themselves behind revelation, or the
Veda, .as the highest authority even on philosophical
questions, that other systems, having been proved un-
Vedic, came to be considered as objectionable or unor-
thodox, while the Vedanta, as its very name implied, was
safe u?K*if, r the shadow of the Veda. I know that other
scholars maintain that with the Samkhya any appeal to the
Veda was an afterthought only, and not an essential part
of the original system, nay, not even quite honest. We
may admit that the Samkhya has no need of the Veda, but
why should it appeal to it even on indifferent questions, if
the Veda had not been considered by it as of supreme
authority. It is possible that there may have been origin-
ally a^ difference between $ruti, revelation as not human,
and Aptava&ana, authoritative tradition as human, and
that with Kapila the Veda was treated at first as coming
under Aptava&ana. But however this may be, unless our
conception of the development of Indian philosophy, as we
catch glimpses of it now and then in the course of centuries,
is entirely wrong, it must be clear that, in the present state
of our knowledge, to call one channel of philosophic thought,
whether S&mkhya or Vedanta, in the form in which it has
reached us, more ancient than the other, would be mere
playing with words.
1 800 Tuttva-samasft aa ; S&iwkhya-karikuB 44.
PARALLEL DEVELOPMENT OP PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS. 235
Parallel development of Philosophical Systems.
The result of this desire to fix dates, where dates are
impossible, has often proved most mischievous. Scholars
of recognised authority have arrived at and given expression
to convictions, not only widely different, but diametrically
opposed to each other. The chief cause of this confusion
has been that, by a very natural tendency, we always wish
to arrange things Nacheinander or in causal connection,
instead of being satisfied with taking things as Nebenein-
ander, parallel and formed under similar conditions, spring-
ing from a common source arid flowing on side by side in
the same direction.
A reference to the history of language may make my
meaning clear<3to No one would say that Greek was older
than Latin. Ureek h^ts some forms more primitive than
Latin, but Latin also has^ some forms more primitive than
Greek. It is true that we know literary productions in
Greek at a much earlier time than literary productions
in Latin, nor would >any Sanskrit scholar deny that the
Sutras of BadarayaTia are older than the Samkhya-Sutra^s,
as we now possess the two. But for all that, Greek, as
a language, cannot be a day older than Latin. Both
branched off, slowly it may be and almost imperceptibly
at firso, from the time when the Aryan separation took
place. In their embryonic form they both go back to some
indefinite date, far beyond the limits of any chronology.
In India we may learn how, like language, religion, and
rnytliOAOgy, philosophy also formed at first a kind of
common property. We meet with philosophical ideas of
a Vedantic character, though as yet in a very undecided
form, as far back as the hymns of the Kig-veda ; ihey meet
us again in the Brahmawas and in some of the Upanishads,
while the Samkhya ideas stand out less prominently, owing,
it would seem, to the ascendency gained at that early period
already by the Vedanta. Instead of supposing, however,
that passages in support of Samkhya ideas occurring in
certain of the older Upanishads were foisted in at a later
time, it seems far more probable to me that they were
survivals of an earlier period of as yet undifferentiated
philosophical thought.
236 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Buddhism subsequent to Upanishads.
What remains of the chronological framework of Indian
philosophy is in the end not much more than that both
Vedanta and Samkhya ideas existed before the rise of
historical Buddhism. The very name of Upanishad, for
instance, as so peculiar that its occurrence in ancient Bud-
dhist texts proves once for all the existence of some of these
works before the rise of Buddhism.
The recognition of mendicant friars also, as a social insti-
tution, seems to me simply taken over from the Brahmans.
The very name of Bhikkhu, applied to the members of the
Buddhist fraternity, comes from the same source. It is
true, no doubt, that the name of Bhikshu does not occur in
the classical Upanishads, but the right of begging, whether
in the first or the third of the Asramas (Brahmafcarin or
Vanaprastha), is fully recognised, only that the third and
fourth Asramas are not so clearly distinguished in early
times as they are in Manu and afterwards. In the Kaush.
Up. II, 2 we read of a man who has begged through a vil-
lage and got nothing (Bhikshitva) ; in the Kh&ud. tip. IV,
3, 5, a Brahmafcarin is mentioned who has begged. The
technical term for this begging is Bhiksh&fcarya in the
Brih. Ar. Up. Ill (V), 5, i, and exactly the same compound,
BhikkhaMrya, occurs in the Dhammapada 392 ; BhaiksM-
Mrya occurs also in the MuTidaka I, z, u, so that the fact
that the substantive Bhikshu does not occur in the classical
Upanishads can hardly be used as an argument to prove
that the status of the mendicant friar was not known
before the spreading of Buddhism. It is true that in its
social meaning Asrama, the name of the three or four stages,
does not occur in the classical Upanishads ; but, as we find
Asramin in the Maitray. Up. IV, 3, we can hardly doubt
that the. three or four stages (Brahma&ari, Gaha^Ao, Vana-
"p&tflio, Bhikkhu) were known before the rise of Buddhism,
and taken over by the Buddhists from the Vedic Brahmans.
Socially, the only Asramas that remained among the Bud-
dhists were two, that of the Gn'hins and that of the
Bhikkhus.
That many of the technical terms of the Buddhists
(Uposhadha, &c.) could have come from the same source
ASVAGHOSHAS BUDDHA-A'AEITA. 237
only, has long been known, so much so that it has been
rightly said, Without Br&hmanism no Buddhism.
The institution of the Vasso *, for instance, the retreat
during the rainy season, is clearly taken over from the
Varshas, the rainy season, as kept by the Br&hmans, and
so is the quinquennial celebration of the Pa/J/cavarsha-pari-
shad, and many other customs adopted by the Buddhists.
Lalita-vlstara.
I have explained before why at present I attribute less
importance than I did formerly to the occurrence of a
number of titles, including S&mkhya, Yoga, Vaiseshika,
and possibly Nyaya, in the Lalita-vistara. If the date
assigned by Stanislas Julien and others to certain Chinese
translations of this work could be re-established, the passage
so often quoted from the twelfth chapter would be of con-
siderable value to us in forming an idea of Indian literature
as it existed at the time when the Lalita-vistara was orig-
inally composed. We find here the names not only of the
Vedic glossary (NighaTitfu ?) the Nigamas (part of Nirukta),
Puratias, Itihasas, Vedas, grammar, Nirukta, /SiksM, jfiTAan-
das, ritual (Kalpa), astronomy (6?yotisha), but, what would
be most important for us, the names of three systems of
philosophy also, Samkhya, Yoga, and Vaiseshika, while
Hetuvidyzt can hardly be meant for anything but; Ny&ya.
But until the dates of the various Chinese translations of
the Life of Buddha have been re-examined, we must abstain
from using them for assigning any dates to their Sanskrit
originals.
Asvag hosha' a Buddha-£arita.
We may perhaps place more reliance on Asvaghosha's
Buddha-fcarita, which, with gre&t probability, has been
ascribed to the first century A. D. He mentions Vyasa, the
son of Sarasvati, as the compiler of the Veda, though not
of the Vedanta^Sfttras ; he knows Valmiki, the author of
the Ram&yaTia, Atreya as a teacher of medicine, and Ganaka,
the well-known king, as a teacher of Yoga. By far the
most important passage in it for our present purpose is the
conversation between Arada and the future Buddha, here
1 S.B.E., vol. viii, p. 213.
338 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
already called Bodhisattva in the twelfth book. This
Arada'is clearly a teacher of Samkhya-philosophy, it may
be of Samkhya in an earlier state ; and, though the name
of Samkhya does not occur, the name of' .Kapila does (XII,
31), and even a disciple of his is mentioned. Here then we
have in a poem, ascribed to the first century A. D., a clear
reference to that philosophical system whiah is known to
us under the name of S&mkhya, and we have actually the
name of Kapila, the reputed author of that system.- The
name of Kapila- vastu l also occurs, as the birthplace of
Buddha and as the dwelling of the famous sage Kapila.
No reference to the Vedaiita has been met with in Asva-
ghosha's Buddha-Aiarita, though the substitution of the
Vedantic name of Brahman for the S&mkhya name of
Purusha deserves attention.
Buddhist Suttas.
If we consult the Buddhist Suttas, which, whatever the
date of their original composition rnay have been, were at
all events reduced to writing in the first century B.C., and
may be safely used therefore as historical evidence for that
time, we find there also views ascribed to the Brahmans
of Buddha's time which clearly breathe the spirit of the
Samkhya-philosophy. But it would be very unsafe to say
more, and to maintain that such passages prove in any way
the existence of fully developed systems of philosophy, or
of anything very different from what we find already in
certain Upanishads. All we* can say is that there are
a number of terms in the Suttas which are the very terms
used in the Vedanta, S&mkhya and Yoga-philosophies, such
as Atman, /S&svata, Nitya (? Anitya), Akshobhya, Brahman,
t^vara, Dhanna, PariTtftma, and many more ; but, so far as
I know, there is not one of which we could say that it
could have been taken from the Sutras only, and from
nowhere else.
We should remember that in the Buddhist Canon we find
constant mention of Titthiyas or Tirthakas and their here-
1 I write V&stu, because that alone means dwelling-place, while Vastu
moans thing. Vastu became Vatthu in Pali, and was then probably
retranslated into Sanskrit as Vastu.
A£VALAYANA S G/?/HYA-SUTKAS. 239
il systems of philosophy. Six contemporaries of Buddha
mentioned, one of them, NigaTitAo Nataputta, being the
tical
are
well-known founder of (rainism, Parana Kassapa, Makkhali,
Agita, Pakudha and Sar7^aya l. Nor are the names of the
reputed authors of the six systems of Brahmanic-philosophy
absent from the Tripifaka. But we hear nothing of any
literary compositions ascribed to Badarayana, Craimini,
Kapila, Pata/?#ali, Gotama or Ka^ada. Some of these
names occur in the Buddhist Sanskrit texts also, such as
the Lankavatara where the names of KaTiada, Kapila,
Akshapada, Brihaspati are met with, but again not a single
specimen or extract from their compositions.
Asvalayana's Grthya-Sfttras.
Another help for determining the existence of ancient
Sutras and Bhashyas may be found in the Grihya-Sutras
of Asvalayana and $amkhayana, works belonging to the
age of Vedic literature, though it may be to the very end
of what I call the Sutra-period. Here, as I pointed out in
1859 in my History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, we find
not only the Rig-veda with all its subdivisions, but such
names as Sumantu, (raimini, Vaisampayana, Paila, Sutras,
Bhashyas, Bharata2, Mahabharata, teachers of the law,
(rananti, Bahavi, Gargya, Gautama, A^akalya, Babhravya,
MartcZavya, MaraZiikeya, Gargi Vafcaknavi, Vadava Prati-
theyi, Sulabha Maitreyi, Kahola Kaushitaka, Mahakaushi-
taka, Paimgya, Mahapaimgya, Suy&gns, >Samkhayana,
Aitareya, Mahaitareya, the Sakala (text), the Bashkala
(text), Su^atavaktra, Audavahi, Mahaudavahi, Sau(/ami,
6'aunaka, Asvalayana. The /Samkhayana Grihya-Sutras
IV, 10, give the same list, though leaving out a few names
and adding others. The most valuable part in both sets
of Grihya-Sutras is their testifying at that early and
probably pre-Buddhistic time, not only to the existence of
Sutras, but of Bhashyas or commentaries also, without
which, as I said before, neither the philosophical, nor the
1 SamatfHa-Phala-Sutta 3.
2 How careful we must be, we may learn from the fact that instead of
Bharata and Mahabharata, other MSS. read Bharatadharma/caryas ; while
in the Samkhayana Gnhya-Sutras IV, 10, 4, Bharata, MahAbharata and
Dharmafcaryas are loft out altogether.
240 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
grammatical, nor any other Sfttras would ever have been
intelligible, or even possible.
Did Buddha borrow from Kapila?
I may seem very sceptical in all this, but I cannot even
now bring myself to believe that the author of Buddhism'
borrowed from the Samkhya or any other definite system
of philosophy, as known to us in its final Sutra form, in
the sense which we ourselves assign to borrowing. Buddha,
it seems to mfe, had as much right to many of the so-called
Sa7ftkhya or Vedanta ideas as Kapila or anybody else.
Who would say, for instance, that his belief in Samsara
or migration of souls was borrowed from Badaraya??a or
Kapila ? It belonged to everybody in lr»d ja as much as
a belief in Karman or the continuous working of deeds.
In the great dearth of historical dates it may no doubt be
excusable, if we lay hold of anything to save us from
drowning while exploring the chronology of Indian litera-
ture. Our difficulties are very great, for even When the
names of the principal systems of philosophy and the
names of their reputed authors are mentioned, how do we
know that they refer to anything written that we possess ?
Unless we meet with verbatim quotations, we can never
know whether a certain book of a certain author is in-
tended, or simply the general Parampara, that is, the tradi-
tion, as handed down in various Asramas, two things Which
should be carefully distinguished.
It is strange to see how often our hopes have been roused
and disappointed. We were told that in Professor Hardy's
most valuable edition l of the Anguttara a number of
philosophical sects, were mentioned which existed at the
time of Buddha's appearance, such as (i) Agrlvakas, (2)
NigaTitf/tas, (3) Mundasavakas, (4) 6?a£ilakas, (5) Paribba-
gfakas, (6) MagaraKkas, (7) Teda?ic?ikas, (8) Aviruddhakas,
(9) Gotamakas, and (10) Devadhammikas. But not one of
these names helps us to a real chronological date. Agivakas
and NigaTi^Aas are the names of ffaina ascetics, the latter
belonging to the Digambara sects, which could hardly have
been established long before Buddha's appearance, while
1 The Pali Text Society, vol. iii, p. 276.
BANAS HAUSHAATAKITA. 241
MuTicJaaavakas, i.e. pupils of the shaveling, the Buddha,
and Gotamakas would seem to be schools which owed their
existence to Buddha himself. The other names
ascetics, Paribb%aKas, religious mendicants,
i.e, Samnyasins carrying the three staves, would be appli-
cable both to Brahmanic and Buddhist sects. Magamftkas.
if meant for Magadhikas, people of Hagadha, would be
Buddhists again. Aviruddhakas, a name not clear to me,
may have been intended for ascetics no longer impeded by
any desires, while Devadbamrnikas are clearly worshippers
of the ancient national Devas, and therefore Br&hinanic,
and possibly Vedic. We get no historical dates from the
names of any of these schools, if schools they were. All
tj^ey teach is that at tLe time Brahmanic and Buddhist
sects were existing side by side in large numbers, but by
no means, as is commonly supposed, in constant conflict
with each other l. * Of the six recognised systems of philo-
sophy, of their eponymous heroes or their written works,
we do not hear a single word.
Bana's Harsha£arlta.
Not even in later works, which have been referred to the
sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries A.D., do we meet with
actual quotations from our S&tras of the six Dar*anas.
Bana, in his Life of King Harsha, knows indeed of Aupam-
shadas, Kapilas, K&nadas; and if the Kapilas are the
followers of the Sa/mkhya, Kanadas the followers of the
V^aiseshika school, the Aupanishadas can hardly be meant
for anybody but the Vedimtins. Varaha-Mihira also, in
the sixth century A.D.. mentions Kapila and Kanabhufl
(Vaiseshika), but even this does not help us to the dates of
any Sfttras composed by them.
The Chinese translator of the K&rikas, likewise in the
sixth century, informs us that these Karikas contain the
words of Kapi)a or of Pa/7fcasikha, the pupil of Asuri, who
was the pupil of Kapila. We are told even tha,t there were
originally 60,000 Gathas, and all that lavara- Krishna did
1 Cf. Rhys Davids, J. R A. S., J.m., 1898, p. 197.
16 *
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
was to select seventy of them for his seventy or seventy-
two KPirikas.
That Madhava (7350 A.D.), while mentioning the Sutras
of the other systems, should not have mentioned those of
the Samkhya, is no doubt, as I pointed out before, a strong
argument in support of their non-existence in his time.
But it is no proof, as little as we may conclude from the
fact that Eiouen-thsang translated the Vaiseshika-nik&ya-
dasapadartha-sastra by (r/tanafcmdra, and riot the Vaise-
shika-Sutras by Ka^ada, that therefore these Sutras did not
exist in his time. We cannot be too careful in such matters,
for the unreserved acceptance of a purely conjectural date
is very apt to interfere with the discovery of a real date.
Hiouen-thsang likewise mentions a number of Nyaya works,
but not Gotama's Nyaya-Sfttras, Does that prove that
Gctt&ma's Sutras were unknown in the seventh century ?
It< ..may or may not. Pie relates that Guwamati defeated
a famous Samkhya philosopher of the name of Madhava,
but again lie tells us 110 more. His own special study, as
is well known, was the Yoga-philosophy. And here again,
though h& speaks of a number of Yoga works, he says not
a word of the most important of them all, the Siltras of
Pata%ali l. Yet I doubt whether we may conclude from
this that these Sutras did not exist at his time.
The
If then I venture to call the Tattva-samasa the oldest
record that has reached us of the Samkhya-philosophy,
and if I prefer to follow them in the account I give of that
philosophy, I am quite aware that many scholars will object,
and will prefer the description of the Samkhya as given in
the KarJkas and in the Sutras. Both of them, particularly
the Karikas, give us certainly better arranged accounts of
that philosophy, as may be seen in the excellent editions
and translations which we owe to Professor Garbe, and
1 may now odd to Satish Chandra Banerji, 1898. If, as
J believe, the Tattva-samasa-Sutras are older than our
Sti9/<kliya- Sutras, their account of the Samkhyu-philosophy
1 M. M., India, p, 362.
THE TATTVA-SAMASA. 243
would always possess its peculiar interest from a historical
point of view; while even if their priority with regard to
the Karikas and Sutras be doubted, they would always
retain their value as showing us in how great a variety
the systems of philosophy really existed in so large a country
as India.
These Samasa- Sutras, it is true/ are hardly more thari
a table of contents, a mere Samkhyam or Pari-samkhya,
but that would only show once more that they presuppose
the existence of a commentary from the very first. What
.we possess in the shape of commentaries may not be very
old, for commentaries may come and -go in different schools,*
while the Sutras which they intend to explain, would re-
main unchanged, engraved on the memory of teachers and
pupils. How tenacious that philosophical Parampara was
we can see from the pregnant fact that the Akhy&yikas or
stories, though left out in the Karikas, must surely have
existed both before and after the time of Isvara-Kraima,
for though absent in the Tattva-samasa and in the Karikas,
they reappear in our Samkhya-Sxttras. Where were they
during the interval if nob in Sutras or Karikas, now lost
to us?
The commentary on the Tattva-samasa, the publication
of which we owe to Ballantyne, begins with an introduction
which sounds, no doubt, like a late tradition, but reminds
us in some respects of the dialogue at the beginning of the
Chinese translation of the commentary on the Samkhya-
k&rikas. But though it may sound like a late tradition,
it would be very difficult to prove that it was so. Chron-
ology is not a matter of taste that can be settled by mere
impressions.
A certain Brahman, we are told, overcome by the three
kinds of pain, took refuge with the groat i£t*shi Kapila, the
teacher (not necessarily the originator) of the Samkhya1,
and having declared his family, his name, and his clan in
order to become his pupil, he said : * Reverend Sir. What is
here on earth the highest (the vwmmum bonum)t What
is truth ? What must I do to be saved '? '
1 In the BhAgavata-purana I, 3, n. Kapila is said to havo rented the
Sawkhya (Sawkliya-Sara, eel. Hall, p. 7, note).
K 2
244 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Kapila said, ' I shall tell thee.' Then follow the topics
which are twenty-five in number : —
List of Twenty-five Tattva*.
I. The eight Prakritis (primary and productive,,
elements),
i. The Prakriti as Avyakta (the non-differenllated
or undeveloped principle) ;
3. The Buddhi (intellect), of eight kinds ;
CH
r?
3. The Ahamkara (the subject), of three kinds
(Vaikarika, Tai^asa, Bhfttadi) ;
4-8. The five Tanmatras (essences) of sound, touch,
colour, savour, and odour.
II. The sixteen Vikaras (modifications),
9-13. The five Buddhindriyas (perceptive organs) ;
14-18. The five Karmendriyas (active organs);
I 1 9. Manas (central organ or mind) ;
( 30-24. The Mahabhfttas (material elements) ;
III. 35. The Purusha (Spirit or Self).
IV. The Traigunya (triad of forces).
V. The Sahara (evolution).
VI. The Pratisa/Jcara (dissolution).
VII. The Adhyatrna ( referring to the thirteen instru-
VIII. The Adhibhuta \ ments, i. e. to Buddhi, Ahemkara,
IX. The Adhidaivata ( Manas, and the ten Indriyas.
X. The five Abhibuddhis (apprehensions), five acts of
Buddhi or the Indriyas.
XI. The five Karmayonis (sources of activity).
XII. The five Vayus, winds or vital spirits.
XIII. The five Karmatmans, kinds of Ahawkara.
XIV. Avidya (Nescience), fivefold, with sixty-two sub-
divisions.
XV. Asakti (weakness), twenty-eightfold (nine Atushfts
and eight Asiddhis).
XVI. Tiishti (contentment), ninefold.
XVII. Siddhi (perfection), eightfold.
XVIII. Mulikarthas (cardinal facts), eight.
XIX. Anugrahasarga (benevolent creation).
THE AVYAKTA. 245
XX. Bhutasarga (creation of material elements), fourteen,
XXI. Bandha (bondage), threefold.
XXII. Moksha (freedom), threefold.
XXIII. Pramam (authorities), threefold.
XXIV. DuAkha (pain), threefold.
I have given these titles or headings in Sanskrit, and
shall often have to *^se these Sanskrit terms, because their
English equivalents, even when they can be found, are too
often unintelligible or misleading without a commentary,
This commentary which follows immediately on the Sutra,
is meant to elucidate their meaning, and it does so on the
whole satisfactorily, but the English word seerns never to
square the Sanskrit terms quite accurately.
The commentator begins by asking, * Now what are the
eight Prakritis ? ' and he answers, again in technical terms
which will have to be explained: I. ' i. The Avyakta
(chaos), 3° Buddhi (light or perception), 3. Ahamk&ra
(subjectivity), and 4-8, the five Tanmatras (transcendental
elements).'
The Avyakta.
He then continues: i. * Here then the Avyakta, neuter
(the undeveloped), is explained. As in the world various
objects such as water-jars, cloth, vases, beds, £c., are mani-
fest, not so is the Avyakta manifest. It is not apprehended
by the senses, such as ths ear, &c. And why '} Because it
has neither beginning, middle, nor end, nor has it any parts,
It is inaudible, intangible, invisible, indestructible, eternal,
without savour and odour. The learned declare it to be
without beginning and middle, to be beyond what is great 1,
unchanging, pre-eminent. And again, this Avyakta is
subtle, without attributes, without beginning or end, pro-
ducing (Prasuta), but alone of all the eight "Prakritis un-
pioduced (Aprasuta), without parts), one only, but con) men
to all. And these are its synonyms, that is to say, words
applicable to the Avyakta, under certain circumstances .
lMahat in the sense of mind, and Pradhana in the sense of nature,
hardly to be appropriaie here.
246 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Pradhana (principal), Brahman *, Pura (abode), Dhruva
(unchanging), Pradhanaka (chief), Akshara (indestructible),
Kshetra (field, object), Tamas (darkness), Prasuta (produc-
tive)/
Buddhi.
2. ' And what is called Buddhi (intellect) ? Buddhi is
Adhyayasaya (ascertainment). It is that through which
there Is in regard to a cow, &c., the conviction (Pratipatti),
"This is so and so, not otherwise, this is a cow, not a horse ;
this is a post, not a man/'' Such is Buddhi, the most won-
derful phase of Prakr/ti/
Buddhi is generally taken here in its subjective or psycho-
logical sense, but whatever native and European authorities
may have to say, it is impossible that this should have been
its original meaning in the mind of Kapila. If Buddhi
.meant only determination (Adhyavasaya), even in its widest
sense, it would clearly presuppose the later phases, not only
Ahamkara, Manas, Indriyas, as subjective, but likewise
something that is knowable and determinable, such as
Mahabhutas, or at least Tanmatras. Though this psycho-
logical acceptation is the common acceptation of Buddhi
among native writers on Samkhya, yet sense is more
important than commentaries, The Buddhi or the Mahat
must here be a phase in the cosmic growth of the universe,
like Prakrit! in the beginning, and the senses and the
other organs of the soul ; and however violent our pro-
ceeding may seem, we can -hardly help taking this Great
Principle, the Mahat, in a cosmic sense. Now the first
step after Avyakta, the undeveloped, dull, and as yet
secseless Prakriti, can only be Prakriti as lighted up, as
rendered capable of perception, and no longer as dull
matter. If taken in a psychological sense, it supplies, no
doubt, in a later stage, the possibility of individual per-
ception also, or of the determination of this and that. But
1 Brahman Beema out of place here, and to bo synonymous with
Punii^u or Auri:in rather than with the Avyaktu. It is given as
a »yno.\y:riyof Furusha further on, but strictly speaking Prakrit! als^
'.void! I, t'romjl Vcdantic point of view, fall to Brahman as being what if,
called the srifcStaiiti.il cause of the world, l«ut of an immaterial world, a&
it w
BT7DDHI. 247
originally it must have been meant as Prakriti illuminated
and intellectualised, and rendered capable of becoming at
a later time the germ of Ahawkara (distinction of subject
and object), Manas, mind, and Indriyas, apprehensive senses.
Only after Prakriti has become lighted up or perceptive,
only after mere material contact has become consciousness,
can we imagine the distinction, whether general or indi-
vidual, between subject and object (Ahamkara), and their
new relation as perceiver and perceived, as ' I ' on one side
and * this ' arid ' that J on the other.
This may seem a very bold interpretation, and a complete
forsaking of native guidance, but unless a more reasonable
and intelligible account can be given of Buddhi, there seems
no escape from ii
What native interpreters have made of Buddhi may
be seer in all their commentaries, for instance, Y£&aspati-
Misra's commentary on K&rika 23 : ' Every man uses firJt
his external senses, then he considers (with the Manas),
then he refers the various objects to his Ego (Ahamk&ra),
and lastly he decides with his Buddhi what to do.' This
may be quite right in a later phase of the development of
Prakriti, it cannot possibly be right as representing the
first evolution of Prak?^ti from its chaotic state towards
light and the possibility of perception. It could not be the
antecedent of Ahawikara, Manas, arid even the Tanm&tras,
if it were no more than the act of fixing this or that in
thought. I am glad to find that Mr. S. C. Banerji on p. 146
of hj3 work arrives at much the same conclusion.
There are eight manifestations of this Buddhi (intellect),
(j) Dharma, virtue, (2) (?;?ana, knowledge, (3) Vairagya,
dispassionateness, (4) Aisvarya, superhuman power.
As each of these requires explanation, he explains them by
a very favourite process, namely, by contrasting them with
their opposites, and saying that (i) Dharma, virtue, is the
opposite of Aclharma, vice, and is enjoined by Smti and
Smriti, revelation and tradition. It is not opposed to, nay,
it ih in harmony with, the practice of the best people, and
has happiness for its outward mark.
(2) 6r/iana or knowledge, the opposite of A//#ana or
ignorance, is explained as the understanding of the twenty-
248 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
five subjects (Tattvas), the states of thought (Bhava), and
the elements (Bhuta).
(3) Vairagya, dispassionateness, is the opposite of passion,
and consists in not being dependent on or influenced by
extern al objects, such as sound, &c.
(4) Aisvarya, superhuman power, is the opposite of
powerlessness, and consists of the eight qualities such as
Araman, extreme minuteness, i.e. being able to assume the
smallest form and weight, &c. l
These four* kinds of intellect (Buddhi) are classed as
Sattvika.
Their opposites are classed as Tamasa, dark or bad.
Through virtue, as a means, there takes place going up-
ward, through knowledge there arises liberation, through
dispassionateness men are absorbed in Prakrit! (Prakr?'ti-
laya ?), through superhuman power there comes unfettered
movement.
Thus has Buddhi in its. eight forms been described.
Synonyms of Buddhi are, Manas, mind, Mati, thought,
Mahat, the great, Brahma-, masc., Khyati, discrimination,
Pray/va, wisdom, $ruti, inspiration, DhViti, firmness, Pra-
(/>?anasantati, continuity of thought, Smriti, memory, and
Dhi, meditation.
It is quite clear that in all these explanations Buddhi is
taken as intellect, and as personal intellect, and that the
idea of a cosmic stage of intellectuality has been entirely
forgotten. Thus only can we account for the statement
that this Buddhi, if dominated by Sattva (Gu^a of purity),
is said to assume the form (Rupa) of virtue, knowledge,
dispassionateness, arid superhuman powers, while, if domi-
nated by Tamas (Guna of darkness), it takes the four
opposite forms of vice, &c. How could this be possible
beforfe the distinction between subject and object has been
realised by Ahamkara, and before Buddhi has assumed
1 These Alsvarytvs are believed in by Symkhya and Yoga, and are
acquired by Yogins by moans of long and painful practices.
a This also seems out of place here, unless the Sawkhyas give their
own meaning both to Brahman and Brahma. In later times Buddhi,
taken collectively, becomes the Upadhi or mental limitation of Brahma
or Hiranyagarbha.
AHAJfKARA, 249
the character of sense-perception (Buddhindriyani) ? We
have, in fact, to read the Samkhya-philosophy in two
texts, one, as- it were, in the old uncial writing that shows
forth here and there, giving the cosmic process, the other
in the minuscule letters of a much later age, interpreted in
a psychological or epistemological sense.
Ahamkara.
3. Now, he asks, What is called Ahamkara? And he
answers, ' It is Abhimana, assumption or misconception,
and this consists in the belief that I am in the sound,
i. e. I hear, I feel, I see, I taste, and I smell, I am lord and
rich, I am Lsvara, I enjoy, I am devoted to virtue, by me a
man was slain, I shall be slain by powerful enemies, &c.' «
$amkara in his commentary on the Vedanta-Sfttras gives,
though from a different point of view, some more instances,
as when a man, because his wife and children are unhappy,
imagines that he is unhappy, or that he is stout, thin, or
fair, that he stands, walks, or jumps, that he is dumb,
impotent, deaf, blind, that he has desires, doubts, or fears,
whereas all these things do not pertain to him at all, but
to Prakriti only.
' Synonyms of Ahamk&ra, or rather modifications of it,
arer Vaikarika, modifying, Tairyasa, luminous, Bhtitadi, the
first of elements, Sanumana, dependent on inference,
Niranumana, not dependent on inference/
Here we must distinguish again between Ahamkara, as
a cosmic power, and Ahamkara as a condition presupposed
in any mental act of an individual thinker. Ahamkara
was so familiar in the sense of Egoism that, like Buddhi,
it was taken in its ordinary rather than in its technical
Samkhya sense. I quite admit that this is a somewhat
bold proceeding, but how to get without it at a proper
understanding of the ancient Samkhya, the rival of the
Vedanta, I cannot see. We must remember that Ahamkara,
whatever it may mean in later times, is in the Samkhya
something developed out of primordial matter, after that
matter has passed through Buddhi. Buddhi cannot really
act without a distinction of the universe into subject and
object, without the introduction of the Ego or I, which
25° INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
again is impossible without a Non-Ego, or something
objective. After that only do we watch the development
of what is objective in general into what is objectively this
or that (the Tanmatras). But while the creation of what
is subjective and objective is the only possible meaning of
the cosmic Ahamkara, its psychological interpretation is
far more easy. Thus we are told that there are three or
four modifications of the Ahamkara, (i) the Vaikarika,
dominated by the Sattva-gu^a, helps to do good works;
(2) the Taigrasa, dominated by the Ra^asgiwa, helps to do
evil works ; (3) the Bhutadi, dominated by the Tamas-givna,
helps to do hidden works ; (4) the Sanumana Ahamkara Is
responsible for unintentional good; (5) the Niranumana,
for unintentional evil works. This (^vision, though rather
confused, shows at all events that the Ahamkara is here
treated as simply a moral agent, dominated by the Gwias,
but no longer as a cosmic potentia. These five modes of
Ahamkara are spoken of as Karma tma-ns also, i.e.* the very
essence of our acts, while in another place the Tattva-
samasa itself explains that Ahamkara should be ta£en as
an act of Buddhi directed towards the perception of the
nature of what is Self (subjective) or Not-Self (objective).
Though Ahamkara means only the production of Ego, yet
the production of Ego involves that of the Non-Ego, and
thus divides the whole world into what is subjective and
objective.
Five Tanm&tras.
4-8. If it is asked, What are the five Tanmatras (sub-
stances)'? he answers, The five substances or essences as
emanating from Aha?7*,k&ra, the essence of s- >und, contact,
colour, savour, and odour.
The essences of sound are perceived in sounds only.
Differences of sound, such as acute, grave, circumflexed,
and the notes of the gamut, such as Shacfy/a, C, .Rishabha,
D, Gandhara, E, Madhyama, F, Paft&ama, G, Dhaivata, A,
Nishada, B, are perceived ; but there is no difference in the
essence of sound.
The essences of touch are perceived in touch only. Dif-
ferences of touch, such as soft, hard, rough, slippery, cold,
FIVE BUDDHINDRIYAS. 2$ I
and hot, are perceived, but there is no difference in the
essence- of touch.
The essences of colour are perceived in colour only.
Differences of colour, such as white, red, black, green, yel-
low, purple, are perceived, but there is no difference in the
essence of colour.
The essences of savour are perceived in savour only.
Differences of savour, such as pungent, bitter, astringentj
corrosive, sweet, acid, salt, are perceived, but there is no
difference in the essence of savour.
The essences of odour are perceived in odour only.
Differences of odour, such as sweet and offensive, are per-
ceived, but there is no difference in the essence of odour. «
Thus have the essences been indicated ; and their syn-
onyms, though sometimes very inaccurate ones, are said to
be : Ayisesha, not differentiated, and therefore not percep-
tible, Mahabhutas ('?), the great elements ; Prakritis, natures,
Abhogya, not to be experienced, A??/u, atomic, Asanta, not-
pleasurable, Aghora, not-terrible, Amiictea, not-stupid ; the
last three being regations of the qualities of the Maha-
bhutas, according to the three Gunas preponderating in each.
And if it is asked why these eight Prakritis only, from
A vyakta to the Tanniatras, are called Prakritis, the answer
ib because they alone Prakurvanti, they alone bring forth,
or evolve.
Sixteen VikAras.
II. If it be asked ' Which are the sixteen Vikaras or
evolutions ? ' the answer is, ' the eleven sense organs (in-
cluding Manas), &nd the five elements.'
BuAdfc&ndriyas.
9-13. ' Now the organs are set forth; the ear, the skin,
the eyes, the tongue, and the nose, constitute the five
Buddhindriyab, or perceptive organs.
The ear perceives as its object sound, the skin touch, the
eye colour, the tongue savour, the nose odour/
Being produced from the Tanmatras, the senses, as per-
ceiving, are represented as being of the same nature as the
objects perceived, a view of considerable antiquity.
252 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Five Karmendriyas,
14-18. 'The five Karmendriyas or organs of action,
voice, hands, feet, the organ of excretion, and the organ of
generation, perform each its own work. The voice utters
words, the hands work, the feet perform movement, the
organ of excretion evacuation, the organ of generation
pleasure/
Manas.
19. 'Manas, mind, both perceptive and active, performs
its acts of doubting and ascertaining/
Central organ of the senses or KOLVOV alcrBriTijpLo^ might
be the nearest approach to the meaning of Manas ; but
mind may do, if we only remember its Samkhya definition,
as perceptive, like the other organs, and at tho same time
active like the Karmendriyas.
' Thus have the eleven organs been explained. Their
synonyms are Karawa, instruments, Vaikarika, 'changing,
Niyata, special, Padani, appliances1, Avadhritani, kept
under (?), Anu, atomic, Aksha 2, organ/
Five Mafcabhutaa,
20-24. 'The Mahabhutas, or gross elements, are earth,
water, light, air, and ether/
Here the earth, we are told, helps the other four, by
being their support. Water helps the other four by moist-
ening. Light helps the other four by ripening. Air helps
the other four by drying. Ether helps the other four by
giving space.
* Earth is possessed of five qualities, sound, touch, colour,
savour, and odour. Water is possessed of four qualities,
sound, touch, colour, and savour. Light is possessed of
three qualities, sound, touch, and colour. Air is possessed
of two qualities, sound and touch. Ether has one quality,
sound. Thus are the five Mahabhutas explained.
Their synonyms . are : Bhfttas, elements, ABhuta-viseslias;
special elements, Vikaras, modifications, Akritfc, species,
Tanu, skin (or body ?), Vigraha, shapes, /S'arita, pleasurable,
1 Garbe Sawkhya- Philosophic, p. 257.
3 Or Akshara, imperishable ?
PUBUSHA. 253
Ghora, fearful, MM&a, stupid. Thus have the sixteen
Vikaras been described/
Purasha.
III. 25. Now it is asked, 'What is the Purusha?' and
the answer is, * Purusha is without beginning, it is subtle,
omnipresent, perceptive, without qualities, eternal, seer,
experiencer, not an agent, knower of objects, spotless, not
producing. Why is it called Purusha ? Because of its
being old (Puranat), because it rests in the body (Puri
sayate), and because it serves as Purohita (Director)/
These are, of course, fanciful etymologies; and we can
hardly doubt that we have, in the name of Purusha, a recol-
lection of the Vedic Purusha, one of the many names of the
supreme deity, by the side of Visvakarman, Hirariyagarbha,
Prair/apati, &c. Like Brahman when conceived as Atman,
Purusha also was probably used both for the divine and
for the human side of the same power. It is the multi-
plicity only of the Purusha which is peculiar to the Sam-
khya-philosophy.
1 And why is the Purusha without beginning1? Because
there is no beginning, no middle, and no end of it/ This
is not a very satisfactory answer, but it is probably meant
for no more than that we never perceive a beginning,
middle, or end of it. Why is it subtle ? Because it is
without parts and supersensuous. Why omnipresent ? Be-
cause, like the sky, it reaches everything, and its extent is
endless. Why perceptive ? Because it perceives (that is,
for a time) pleasure, pain, and trouble. Why without
qualities ? Because the qualities of good, indifferent, and
bad are not found in it. Why eternal ? Because it wrs
not made, and cannot be made. Why seer ? Because
perceives the modifications of Prakriti. Why enjoy er ?
Because being perceptive it perceives (for awhile) pleasure
and pain. Why not an agent ? Because it is indifferent and
without the qualities (Gmias). WThy tho Knower of body
or of objects ? Because it knows the qualities of objective
bodies. Why spotless ? Because neither good nor evil
acts belong to the Purusha. Why riot producing ? Be-
cause it has no seed, that is, it can produce no-thing. Thus
has the Purusha of .the Samkhya been described
254 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
The synonyms of Purusha are, Atman, Self, Puman, male,
Puragu?ia#antugiva/i, a male living creature, Kshetra#wa,
knower of objects or of the body, Nara, man, Kavi, poet,
Brahman, Akshara, indestructible, Prawa, spirit, YaAka/t *,
anybody, Sat, He.
Thus h#ve the twenty-five substances been described,
viz. the eight Prakritis, the sixteen Vikaras, and the
Purusha. He who knows these twenty-five substances,
whatever stage of life he may be in, and whether he wear
matted hair, a topknot, or be shaven, he is liberated, there
is no doubt. This verse is often quoted by Samkhya philo-
sophers. Here, it seems, the first part of the Tattva-samasa
is ended, containing a list of the twenty-five Tattvas, in the
three divisions of Prakritis, Vikaras, and Purusha.
Purusha (subject).
I. Prakrit! (object).
Avyakta (chaos).
a. Mahat or Buddhi (light and intelligence as Samaahfi, not yet
| individualised).
3. Ahawkara (subjectivation).
5 Tanmatras (Sattvika) 10 Indriyas, organs (Ragasa) + i Manas (mind)
(subtle elements). (5 Buddhindriyas, 5 Karmendriyas, and Manas).
Tanmatras. Buddhindriyas. Karmendriyas.
1. Sound, 5abda. I. Srotra, hearing i. Speaking in tongue
in ear.
2. Touch, Sparra. 2. Tvafc, touch in 2. Grasping in hands.
skin.
3. Colour, Kupa. 3. ATakshus, seeing 3. Moving in fest
in eye. t
4. Savour, Rasa. 4. Cihva, tasting 4. Evacuating in Payu.
in tongue.
5. Odour, Gandha. 5. Ghrana, smell- 5. Generating in Upastha.
ing m nose.
5 Mahabhutas (Tamasa).
1. Aku-sa, ether (*abda).
2. VAyu, air (sabda •*- sparsa).
3. Tejyas, fire (sabda + spai-sa + rftpa),
4. Ay>, water (sabda + sparsa + riipa f rasa),
5. J-Vtthivi, earth (sabda + sparsa + rupu. -r rasa -h gandha).
1 As ya/i, the relative pronoun could hardly be used as a name,
I supposed it might bo meant fcr th« indefinite pronoun ya/ikaA, but this
is doubtful.
THREE GUJVAS. 2.55
Is Pumaha an Agent?
Now follow a number of special questions, which seemed
to require fuller treatment. The first is, Is the Purusha an
agent, or is he not ? If Purusha were an agent, he would
do good actions only, and there would not be the three
different kinds of action. The three kinds of action are
(i) Good conduct, called virtue (Dharma), which consists in
kindness, control and restraint (of the organs), freedom
from hatred, reflection, displaying of supernatural powers.
(a) But passion, anger, greed, fault-finding, violence,
discontent, rudeness, shown by change of countenance,
these are called indifferent conduct.
(3) Madness^ intoxication, lassitude, nihilism, devotion to
women, drowsiness, sloth, worthlessneL-s, impurity, these
are called bad conduct.
We see here once more that the three Gmias must have
had originally a much wider meaning than is here described.
They are here taken as purely moral qualities, whereas
originally they must have had a much larger cosmic sense.
They we not qualities or mere attributes at all ; they are
on the contrary ingredients of Prakr/ti in its differentia-
tion of good, indifferent, bad ; bright, dim and dark ; light,
mobile, heavy. We see here the same narrowing of cos-
rnical ideas which we had to point out before in the case of
Buddhi and Ahamkara, and which, it seeing to me, would
render the original conception of the Samknya-philosophy
quite unmeaning. We must never forget that, even when
the Samkhya speaks of moral qualities, these qualities
belong to nature as seen by the Furusha, never to Purusha
apart from Prakrtti.
Three G>*u;as.
Whenever this triad is perceived in the world it is clear
that agency belongs to the GuTias, and it follows that
Purusha is not the agent.
Deceived by passion and darkness, and taking o wrong
view of these Gutias which belong to Prakr^ti, not to himself,
a fool imagine? that he himself is the agent, jbhough in
reality he is unable by himself to bend even a straw. Nay.
he becomes an agent, as it were, foolish and intoxicated by
256 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
vain imagination and saying, 'All this was made by me
and belongs to me/
And then it is said (in the Bhagavad-gita III, 27) : * Acts
are effected by the qualities (Gmtas) of Prakriti in every
way, but the Self ( Atman), deluded by the conceit of the I
(Ahamkara), imagines that the I is the agent/
Ibid. XIII, 31 :—
' This imperishable supreme Self, from being without-
beginning and devoid of qualities, neither acts nor suffers,
even while staying in the body/
And XIII, 29 :—
' He sees (aright) who looks upon actions as in all re-
spects performed by Prakriti alone, and upon the Self as
never an agent/
Zs Pnmsha one or many?
Now comes the important question, Is that Purusha one
or many ? The answer to this question divides the Sara-
khya from the Vedanta-philosophy. The Samkhya answer
is that the Purusha is clearly many, because of the variety
in the acts of pleasure, pain, trouble, confusion and purify-
ing (of race), health, Abirth and death : also on account of
the stages in life (Asrama) and the difference of caste
( Var,ui). If there were but one Purusha, as the Vedantins
hold, then if one were happy, all would be happy ; if* one
Wi^re unhappy, all would be unhappy, and so on in the case
of people affected by trouble, confusion of race, purity of
race, health, birth and death., Hence there is not one
Purusha, but many, on account of the manifoldness >r ti-
eated by form, birth, abode, fortune, society or loneliness.
Thus Kapjfci, Awiia, Pa/f&asi'kha and Pata/7</ali, and all
other Skfftkf 3*^1 tteaeliers describe Purusha as many.
Vedanta Saying's.
But teachers who follow the Vedanta, such as Harihara.
Hini'tiya'garbha, Vyasa and others, describe Purusha as one.
And why so ? Because (as the Vedftnta says),
1 . Purusha is all this, what has been and what is to be,
ht- ,§ lord of thut immortality which springs up by (sacri-
VEDANTA SAYINGS. 257
fieial) food, that is, he is beyond the immortality of the
ordinary immortal gods l.
2. That is -4gm; that is Vayu, that is Surya, that is
jfandramas, that is pure, that is Brahman, that is water
and Praaapati 2.
3. That is true, that is immortal, it is liberation, it is
the highest point, it is indestructible, it is the glory of the
sun:
4.' Higher than which there is nothing else, nothing
smaller, and nothing greater, the One stands like a tree
planted in the sky ; by him and by the Purusha, all this
is filled3.
5. Having hands and feet everywhere, having mouth,
head and eyes everywhere, hearing everywhere in this
world, it stands covering everything ;
6. Shining4 through the qualities (Guwa) of all the
senses, and yet free from all the senses, the master of all,
the Lord, the great refuge of all ;
7. He is all substances everywhere, the Self of all, the
source of all ; that in which everything is absorbed, that
the sages know as Brahman,
8. For 5 there is but one Self of beings, settled in e very-
body , it is seen as one and as many, like the moon in the
water.
9. For he alone, the great Self, dwells in all beings,
whether moving or motionless, he by whom all this was
spread out.
i ex This Self of the world is one — by whom was it made
ntanifold ? Some speak of the Self as several, because of
the existence of knowledge. &c. (because knowledge is
different in different people;.
ii. Wise6 people see the same (Atman) in the Brahman,
1 These verses are meant to represent the views of the VedAnta, and
they are mostly taken from the Upanishads. The first from & vet. Up.
Ill, 15, occurs also Taitt. AT. Ill, 12, i, and in the Rig-veda X, 90, 2,
where we ehoxild read, Tit annenadhirohati, see Deussen, Geschichto,
I, p. 153.
3 Mahan&r. Up. I, 7 ; cf. Vagr. Sawh. 32, i.
3 Svet. Up. Ill, 9 ; Mahanar. Up. X, ao.
1 Svet. Up. Ill, 17 ; cf. Bhag. Gita XIII 14.
5 BrahmaHndu Up. 12. « Cf. Bhng. GitA V, T&
17 S
258 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
in worms and insects, in the outcast, in the dog and the
elephant, in beasts, cows, gadflies, and gnats.
is, 13. As one and the same string passed through gold,
and pearls, jewels, corals, porcelain, and silver, thus is one
and the same Self to be known as dwelling everywhere in
cows, imen, and in elephants, deer/ &c.
We' see in these extracts a mixture of Vedanta) and
Samkhya terms and ideas; and in verse 10 the two views
of Brahman being one, and the Purusha being many, are
given in the same breath.
Early Relation "between Vedanta. and Samkhya.
The relation between Samkhya apd Vedanta during the
Upanishad-period is by no means clear. Most scholars
seem to regard it as a kind of syncretism, but it may also
represent to us a period of philosophic thought when these
two views of the world were not yet finally differentiated,
and were not felt to be altogether incompatible. Though
there is in the Upanishads which we possess a decided pre-
ponderance of a Vedantie interpretation of the world, the
Sa/mkhya philosophers are not altogether wrong when they
maintain that their view also can be supported by Vedic
authority. All these views were at first no more than
guesses at truth, gropings in the dark ; but the idea that if
the one was right the other must be wrong, belongs de-
cidedly to a later period, to that of systematized and con-
troversial philosophy. There are certain technical terms,
such as Purusha, Buddhi, Gwias, &c., which are looked
upon as the peculiar property of the Samkhya, and others,
such as Atman, Brahman, Avidya, Maya, &c., which remind
us at once of the Vedanta-philosophy ; but even these
terms are used far more freely in the Brahmawas and
Upanishads than in the Daraanas, nor are they always used
in the same sense or in the same order by earlier and later
authorities.
Thus we read in the Kanaka Up. Ill, 10, n : —
'Beyond the senses are the objects (Artha), beyond the
objects is the mind (Manas), beyond Athe mind is intellect
(Buddhi), the Great Self (Mahan Atma) is beyond the
intellect. Beyond the Great there is the Undeveloped
RELATION BETWEEN VEDANTA AND SAJlfKHYA. 259
(Avyakta), beyond the undeveloped there is the Purusha.
Beyond the Purusha there is nothing, that is the goal, the
highest point/
In the same TJpanishad, VI, 7, 8, we read: —
' Beyond .the senses is the mind, beyond the mind the
highest being (Sattvam Uttamam), higher than that being
is the great Self (Mahan Atma), beyond this great (Self) is
the highest, the Undeveloped.
Beyond the Undeveloped is the Purusha, the all-pervading
and imperceptible. Every creature that knows him is
liberated, and obtains immortality/
The successive development, as here described, is not in
strict accordance with the systematic Samkhya, but still
less does it represent to us Vedantie ideas. Even the two
accounts, as given in the sa.me Upanishad, vary slightly,
showing to us how little of technical accuracy there was as
yet during the Upanishad -period. We get-
Ill, 10, ii. VI, 7, 8.
1. Indriyas. Indriyas.
2. Arthas.
3. Manas. Manas.
4. Buddhi. A Sattvani Uttamam.
5. Mahan Atma. Mahan Atma.
6. Avyakta. Avyakta.
7. Purusha. Purusha.
The omission of the Arthas as objects would not signify,
because, as Indriyarthas, they are implied by the Indriyas
or senses. But why should Buddhi, generally the first
emanation of Brakriti in its undeveloped (Avyakta) state,
be replaced by Sattvam Uttamam, the Highest Being?
The word may be meant for Buddhi, for Buddhi is often
called. Mahat, the Great, but why it should be called Great
is difficult to say. It is certainly not an equivalent of the
Phenician Mot, as Professor Wilson conjectured many y^ears
ago 1. Mahan Atma looks like a Vedantic term, but even
then it -would only occupy the place Of Givatma, the indi-
1 See Sawkhya-Sutras I, 61, 71 ; the Ekadasakam is Sattvikoin, cf. II,
18, that is the five Buddhfndriyas, the five Karmentlriyas, and the
Manas; sec Garbe, Sawkhya-pravafcana-bhashya, p. 188.
S 2
260 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
vidualised Self, and how could this be said to emanate from
the Avyakta?
Another passage which reminds us of Samkhya rather
than of Vedanta-philosophy occurs in the Mai tray. Up.
II, 5, where we read : ' He who has the name of Purusha,
and is very small, intangible, invisible, dwells of his own
will * here in part 2, as a man who is fast asleep awakes of
his own will. Arid this part, which is entirely intelligent.
present in every single man, knowing the body, attested by
conceiving (Manas), willing (Bucldhi), and belief in subject
and object (Ahamkara) is Pra^apati, called Visva. By him,
the intelligent, is the body made intelligent; and he is the
driver thereof/
This passage does not contain much of Samkhya thought,
yet the words Purusha and possibly Bnddhipurvani seem
to allude to Kapila's ideas rather than to those of Badara-
yana. Other words also, such as Sa?nkalpa, Adhyavasaya
and Abhimana, in the sense of Ahamkara, point to the
same source. The whole passage, however, is obscure, nor
does the commentator help us much, unless he is iight in
recognising here the germs of the later Vedantic ideas of
a Pra^apati, called Visva or Vaisvanara (Yedanta-sara,
§ 138), Taigrasa and Pragma.
One more passage of the Maitray. Upanishad, III, 2,
may here be mentioned, as reminding us of "S&wkbya
doctrines. There we read: ' There is indeed that other
different one, called the elemental Self (Bhiitatma) who,
overcome by the bright and dark fruits of action, enters ou
a good or evil birth, so that his course is upward or down-
ward, and that overpowered by the pairs (the opposites) he
roams about. And this is the explanation. The five
Tanmatras (of sound, touch, light, taste, and smell) are
called Bhftta (elements), and the five Mahabniitas (gross
elements) also are called Bhftta. Then the aggregate of all
these is called $arira,body, and he who dwells in that body
is called Bhutatman (the elementary Atman). True, his
1 The Anubhuti-prakasa reads Buddhipurvam ; Deussen translates
Abuddhipurvarn.
2 As to the idea of parts (Amsa), see Vedanta-Sutras II, 3, 43, and
Thibaut's remarks in his Introduction, p. xcvii.
KELATIGN BETWEEN VEDANTA AND SAJ^KHYA. 26 1
immortal Atman (Self) remains untainted, like a drop of
water on a lotus-leaf; but he, the Bhutatman, is in the
power of the Gunas of Prakriti. Then, thus overpowered,
he becomes bewildered, and because thus bewildered, he sees
not the creator, i.e. the holy Lord, abiding wft-hin him.
Carried along by the Giwas, darkened, unstable, fickle,
crippled, full of devices, vacillating, he enters into Abhi-
maiid (conceit of subject and object), believing "I am he,
this is mine/7 &c. He binds himself by himself, as a bird
is bound by a net, and, overcome afterwards by the fruits
of what he has done, he enters on a good or evil birth,
downward or upward in his course, and, overcome by the
pairs, he roams about.'
Here we see again a mixture of Sawkhya and Vedanta
ideas, the Samkhya claiming such terms as Prakriti and
Gmias, the Vetlanta such terms as Atman and possibly
Bhutatman. This Bhutatman, however, is by no means so
clear as has sometimes been imagined. It is a term peculiar
to the Maitray. Upanishad, and seems to have been
borrowed from it when it occurs in some of the later
Upanishads. If, like many other things in the Maitray.
Upanishad, it is to be looked upon as belonging to the
Sawkhya-systein, we must remember that Atman, though
quoted sometimes as a synonym of Purusha, cannot be
supposed to stand here for Purusha, A compound such
as Bhuta-Purusha would be impossible. The Maitray.
Up. Ill, i itself says that the^Atraari of Bhutatman is
another, though likewise called Atman, and that he dwells
in the body, Sarira, which is a compound of Tanmatras,
Bhutas, and Mahabhutas, It would therefore correspond
to the Vedantic Givatman. But if this Bhutatman is said
to spring from Prakriti, it could not possibly stand for the
Purusha of the Samkhyris, because their Purusha does not
spring from Prakriti, as little as Prakriti springs from him.
;Nor could any Atman be said to be purely objective. In
i'acl; strictly speaking, this Bhutatman fits neither into the
Vedanta,, nor into the Samkhya-plrilosophy, and would
rather seem to belong to a philosophy in which these two
views of the world were not yet finally separated.
Another difficult arid rather obseure expression in the
262 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Maitray. Upamshad is Niratman (selbstlos), an expression
which would be impossible in the Vedanta-philosophy, and
is certainly perplexing even in the Samkhya.
A similar mixture of philosophical terms meets us in the
/Svetasvatara Upamshad. In verse I, 10, for instance, we
have Pradhana, which is Samkhya. and Maya, which is
Vedanta, at least the later Vedanta, while in IV, 10 Maya
is directly identified with Prakrtti. Purusha occurs in
III, 13, where it evidently stands* for Brahman, IV, I.
But though in this Upamshad Samkhya ideas would seem
to prevail; Vedanta ideas are not excluded. The very name
of Sa/mkhya1 and Yoga occurs (VI, 13), but the name of
Vedanta also is not absent, VI, 32. In all this we may
possibly get a glimpse -of a state of Indian philosophy
which was, as yet, neither pure Samkhya nor pure Vedanta,
unless we look on these Upanishads as of a far more
modern date, and on their philosophy as the result of a later
syncretism,
IV. If now we return to the Tattva-samasa, we meet
first of all with some more remarks about the three Gmias,
Sattva, explained as virtue, purit}^ goodness ; Ra(/as, ex-
plained as dust, mist, passion, movement, and Tamas, dark-
ness, as ignorance. Colebrooke .had already warned us
against taking the Gunas of the Samkhya in the sense
of qualities, 'These three qualities/ he says, 'are not
mere accidents of nature, but are of its essence, and enter
into its composition like different rivers forming one stream,
though for a time retaining their different colours/ Con-
stituent ' parts ' might be a better rendering, out for the
present it is best to retain Gmia, there being neither thought
nor word in English corresponding to GuTia, as defined in the
Samkhya. We ourselves have inherited our ideas of sub-
stance and quality from Greek and medieval philosophers,
but even with us a definition of inherent qualities is by
no means easy, considering that our substances never exist
1 Samkhya should be here taken as the title of the two systems, Sawkhya
and Yoga, or better, still as one word, Sawkhyayoga. It cannot well
mean I'rufuny*
TRAIGUA'YA. 263
without qualities, nor our qualities without substances.
Our commentary continues:—
He now asks, What is the triad of GuTias ? and the answer
is, the triad consists of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness.
The triad of Gwias means the three Ounas.
Goodness (Sattva) is of endless variety, such as calm-
ness, lightness, complacency, attainment of what is wished
for, contentment, patience, joy, fee. In short it consists of
happiness.
Passion is of endless variety, such as grief, distress, separa-
tion, excitement, attainment of what is evil, &c. In short
it consists of pain.
Darkness is of endless variety, such as covering, ignorance,
disgust, misery, heaviness, sloth, drowsiness, intoxication, &c.
In short it consists of trouble or madness.
Thus far has the triad of the Gunas been explained. Let
it be known that goodness is all that is bright, passion all
that excites, and darkness all that is not bright. This is
what is named Traigutiya.
These Gurtas have been again and again explained as
DravyaTii, matter; quality and what is qualified being
considered in the Samkhya as inseparable. The four sides
of a cube, for instance, would be called its Gunas as much
as the blue or the sky. These Guwas act a very prominent
part in In.iian philosophy, and have quite entered into the
sphere of popular thought. We can best explain them by
the general idea of two opposites and the middle term
/between them, or as HegeFs thesis, antithesis and synthesis,
Ithese being manifested in nature by light, darkness, and
mist ; in morals by good, bad, and indifferent, with many
applications and modifications. If 'the Samkhyas look on
certain objects as happy instead of happifying, &c., we
should remember that we also call sugar sweet, meaning
that it ealis forth the sensation of sweetness in us. The
Hindus look upon the state of equilibrium of the three
Gu'/ias as perf feet, and they see in the preponderance of any
one of them the first cause of movement and activity in
Prakrit! or nature, in. fact the beginning of creation.
264 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
SafR-ara and Pratisail&ara.
V, VI. Then comes the question, What is Sa/7&ara and
what is Pratisa.'7/cara ? The answer is, Satf&ara is evolution,
Pratisa>7/cara dissolution or re-involution. * Evolution is as
follows : From the Avyakta (undeveloped Prakriti) before
explained, when superintended by the high and omnipresent
Purusha (Spirit), Buddhi (intellect) arises, and this of eight
kinds. From this Buddhi, the substance of intellect, arises
Ahamkara (conceit of I, or subjectivity). Ahamkara is of
three kinds, Vaikarika, modified, that is, modified of Sattva1;
Taigrasa, luihinous, as under the influence of Ra#as pro-
ducing the Buddhindriyas ; and Bhutadi (first of elements).
From the modified or Vaikarika Ahamkara, which under
the influence of Tarn as produces the gross material elements,
spring the gods and the senses ; from the first of elements.
Bhutadi, the Tanmatras (essences) ; from the luminous,
Taiiqrasa, both. From the Tanm&tras, essences, are produced
the material elements. This is the development or Sahara.
Pratisa.i^&ara or dissolution is as follows: The material
elements are dissolved into the essences, Tanrnatras, the
essences and senses into Ahamkara, Ahamkara into Buddhi
(intellect), Buddhi into Avyakta (the undeveloped), all being
different forms of Prakriti. The Undeveloped is nowhere
dissolved, because it was never evolved out of anything.
Know both Prakriti and Purusha as having no beginning.
Thus has dissolution been explained.
Adfcitolmta, and AdMdaivata.
VII-IX. Now it is asked. What is meant by Adhyatma
(subjective), AdhiBhuto (objective), and Adhidaivata (per-
taining to deity)? To this it is answered, Intellect is
subjective, what is to be perceived is objective, Brahma is
deity. Ahamkara is subjective, what* is to be received and
perceived by it is objective, Rudra is the deity. Marias,
mind, is subjective, what is to be conceived is objective,
A'andra, moon, is the deity .A The ear is subjective, what is
to be hoard is objective, Akasa, ether, is the deity. The
skin is subjective, what is to be touched is objective, Vayu,
1 Garbe, Sawkhya-Philosopliie, p. 236,
ABHIBUDDHIS. 265
wind, is the deit£. The eye is subjective, what is to be
seen is objective, Aditya, the sun, is the deity. The tongue
is subjective, what is to be tasted is objective, Varuna l is
the deity. The nose is subjective, what is to be smelled is
objective, Earth is the deity. The voice is subjective, what
is to be uttered is objective, Agni, fire, is the deity. The
two hands are subjective, what is to be grasped is objective,
Indra is the deity. The feet are subjective, what has to be
gone over is objective, Vishnu is the deity. The organ of
excretion is subjective, what is to be excreted is objective,
Mitra is the deity. The organ of generation is subjective,
what is to be enjoyed is objective, Pra</apati, lord of
creatures, is the deity. Thus in the case of each of the
thirteen instruments is there what is subjective, what is
objective, and the deity.
Whoever has properly learnt the substances, the forms
of the qualities (Gunasvarupa/m), and the deity (Adhi-
daivatam) is freed from evil and released from all his
sins ; he experiences the qualities (Gunas), but is not united
to theln. Here ends the discussion of the Tattvas (sub-
stances)2.
AbMtoudcihis (5).
Xc Now what are the five Abhibuddhis (apprehensions) ?
The answer is, They are Vyavasaya, ascertainment, Abhi-
mana, conceit, tkkftb, desire, Kartavyata, determination to
act or will, Kriya, action.
The apprehension that this has to be done by me is
ascertainment ; an act of the intellect. Abhimana, conceit,
is directed towards the perception of the nature of Self and
not-Self, it is Ahamkara, an act of the intellect. 1/cfcM,
desire, is wish, an idea of the mind, an act of the intellect.
Kartavyata, the will of doing such acts as hearing, &c.,
1 Evidently taken already as god of the. wacers.
3 I ought to say that in this and the subsequent paragraphs I had
often to bo satisfied with giving the words such as they stand, without
being myself able to connect any definite ideas with them. I did not
like to leave them out altogether, but while they may be safely passed
over by philosophical readers, they may, I hope, elicit from Sanskrit
scholars some better elucidation than I am able to give. At present most
of them seem to ine to consist of useless distinctions and hair-splitting
definitions of words.
266 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
performed by the senses that have sound, &c., for their
objects, is an act of the intellect pertaining to the Bud-
dhindriyas. Kriya, the act of the intellect, such as
speaking, £c., pertaining to the Karmendriyas, is action l.
Thus have five Abhibuddhis (apprehensions) been ex-
1*1
plained.
Xarmayonis (5).
XI. What are the five Karmayonis ? The answer is
that they are Dhriti, energy, $raddha, faith or faithfulness,
Sukha, bliss, Avividisha, carelessness, Vividisha, desire of
knowledge.
The character of Dhriti or energy is when a man resolves
and carries out his resolution. $raddha, faith or faithful-
ness, is said to consist in study of the«Veda religious student-
ship, sacrificing and causing sacrifices to be performed,
penance, giving and receiving proper gifts, and making
Homa-oblations.
• But Sukha or bliss arises when a man, in order to obtain
blessedness, devotes himself to knowledge, sacrifices and
penance, being always engaged in penitential acts.
Avividisha or carelessness consists in the heart's being
absorbed in the sweetness of sensual pleasures.
Vividisha or desire of knowledge is the source of know-
ledge of thoughtful people, What has to be known is the
oneness (belonging to Prakriti), the separateness (of Purusha
and Prakriti), &c., (Prakrit!) being eternal, and not-perci-
pient, subtle, with real products, and not to be disturbed ;
and this is YividishS,. ... It is a state belonging to Prakriti
destroying cause and effect. Thus have the five Kar-
mayonis been explained (?).
Some portions of these verses are obscure, and the text
is probably corrupt. I have taken (r/Ieya for GvTeyam,
referring to each of the subjects with which Vividisha, the
desire of knowledge, is concerned. The construction is very
imperfect, but may be excused in what is after all no more
than an index. I separate Sukshinain and take it in the
sense of Sukshmatvam. Satkaryam refers to the Satkarya-
vada. The third line is quite unintelligible to me, and
1 The text is somewhat (Doubtful.
VAYUS. KAKMATMANS, 2& J
Ballantyne has very properly left it altogether untrans-
lated. It may mean that Vividisha is a state belonging to
Prakriti which helps to destroy cause and effect by showing
that they are one and the same, but this is a mere guess.
V&yns (6).
XII. What are the V&yus (winds)? They are PraTia,
Apana, Samana, Ud&na, and Yyana, i.e. the winds in the
bodies of those who have bodies. The wind called Pra/r&a
is superintended by mouth and nose, and is called PraTia
because it leads out or moves out. The wind called Apana
is superintended by the navel, and is called Apana because
it leads away and moves downward. The wind called
Samana is superintended by the heart, and is called Samana
because it leads equally and moves equally. The wind
called Udana is superintended by the throat. It is called
Udana because it goes upward and moves out. Vyana
is the all-pervader. Thus have the five winds been ex-
plained.
The real meaning of these winds has never been dis-
covered. If they are rendered by vital spirits, nothing is
gained except explaining obscurum per obscurius, They
may have been intended to account for the vital processes
which make the action of the senses (Indriyas) and of
other organs of the body also, possible, but their original
intention escapes us altogether. They form a kind of
physical organism or AntaAkaraTia, but their special func-
tions are often stated differently by different authors.
Kar m£t mans (5).
XIII. What are the five Karmatmans, the (Ego as
active)? They are Vaikarika, Tai^asa, Bhutadi, Sanu-
mana, and Niranumana. The Vaikarika, modifying, is the
doer of good works. The Tai</asa, luminous, is'the doer of
bad works. The Bhfttadi l, first of elements, is the doer of
hidden works. If associated with inference (Sanumana),
the Ahamkara is the doer of what is good and reasonable ;
1 Bhutadi is used in the sense of Manas, because the Bhutas, though
springing from the Tanniatras, are due to it.
268 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
if not associated with inference (Niranumana) it is the doer
of what is not good and not reasonable. Thus have the five
Karmatmans been explained.
35Te science (5).
XIV. What is the fivefold Avidya (Nescience) ? It is
Tamas, darkness, Moha, illusion, Mahamoha, great illusion,
Tamisra, gloom, Andhatamisra, utter gloom. Here dark-
ness and illusion are again each eightfold, great illusion is
tenfold, gloom and utter gloom are eighteenfold. Tamas,
darkness, is the misconception that Self is identical with
things which are not Self, namely with Prakriti, Avyakta,
Buddhi, Ahamkara, and the five Taftmatras. Moha, illu-
sion, is the misconception arising from the obtainrnent of
Supernatural powers, such as minuteness and the rest.
Mahamoha, great illusion, is when one supposes oneself to
be liberated in the ten states with regard to the objects
of sound, colour, &c., whether heard or seen, &c. Gloom is
unrestrained hatred, directed against the eightfold Super-
human powers, such as minuteness, &c., and against the
tenfold world of sense causing threefold pain. Utter
gloom is that distress which arises at the time of death
after the eightfold human power has been acquired, and
the tenfold world of sense has been conquered. Thus has
ignorance with sixty-two subdivisions been explained.
Asakti, Weakness (28).
XV. What is called the twenty-eightfold weakness?
The faults of the eleven organs of sense find the seventeen
faults of the intellect. First, with regard to the organs of
sense, there is deafness in the ear, dullness in the tongue,
leprosy in the skin, blindness in the eye, loss of smell in
the noso, dumbness in the voice, cripplcdness in the hands,
lameness in the feet, constipation in the organ of excretion,
impotence in the organ of generation, madness in the mind ;
these are defects of the eleven organs. The seventeen
defects of the intellect are the opposites of the Tushlis,
contentments, and of the Side! his, perfections.
ATUSH^f AND TUSHJI. ASIDDHIS AND SIDDHIS. 269
Atushtt and Tushtt.
XVI. First then the opposites of the TushZis or the con-
tentments. They are Ananta, the conviction that there is
no Pradhana (Prakr/ti) ; Tamasalina, consisting in recog-
nising the Atman in the Mahat (Buddhi, intellect); Avidya,
the non-recognition of the Ego (Ahamkara) ; AvHshZi, the
denial that the Tanmatras, essences, are the causes of the
elements ; Asutara, occupation in acquiring the objects of
the senses ; Asupara, occupation in their preservation ;
Asunetra, occupation for wealth, without seeing that it is
liable to be lost ; Asumarifcika. addiction to enjoyment ;
Anuttamambhasika, engaging in enjoyment without seeing
the evil of injury (to living beings). Thus have the nine
opposites of Tushtfi, contentment, been explained.
Asiddhis and Siddfcis,
XVII. Next follow the opposites of Siddhi, perfection,
which -are also called Asiddhis, non-perfections: Atara,
when diversity is mistaken for phenomenal unity ; Sutara,
when', after hearing; words only,, the opposite is understood,
as, for instance, when after hearing that a man who knows
the various principles .(tattvas) is liberated, a man under-
stands /the opposite, that such a man is not liberated ;
Ataratara, ignorance, when a man, thougn devoted to
hear ng* and simdying, does not succeed in knowing the
twenty-five principles, owing either to his obtuseness or to
his intellect being impaired by false doctrines. If a man,
though overcome by mental suffering, is not anxious to
know, being careless as to transmigration, so that know-
ledge is no pleasure to him, this is Apramoda. Thus the
next pair also of Apramudita (mutually not delighted) and
Apramodam&na (mutually not delighting) should be con-
sidered. Ignorance of a man of undecided mind even with
regard to what has been taught him by a friend is Arasya.
But failure of an unfortunate man in obtaining knowledge,
either because of bad instruction or disregard on the part
of the teacher, is Asatpramuditam. Thus have the eight
Asiddhis, the opposite of the Siddhis or perfections, been
explained, and the twenty- eightfold Asakti (weakness) is
finished.
270 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Tnsfcfis and SiddMs.
Next follow the rf ush£is and Siddhis themselves, but as
their opposites have already been examined we may dis-
pense with their enumeration here. Some of these technical
terms vary in different texts, but they are of very small
importance 1. I am afraid that even what I have given of
these long lists, which are so characteristic of the Samkhya-
philosophy, may have proved very tedious, and not very
closely connected with *the great problems of philosophy.
I confess that 'in several cases many of these subdivisions
seemed to me entirely meaningless, but I thought that
they were of some importance historically, and for a right
appreciation of the methods of Indian philosophy. The
long lists of the instruments and the acts of intellect, of
the sources of activity, of Nescience with its sixty-two
subdivisions, &c., though certainly meaningless to my
mind, may possibly serve to show how long and how
minutely these philosophical questions must have been
discussed in order to leave such spoils behind. This large
number of technical terms is certainly surprising. Some
of them, as, for instance, SuM, Pada, Avadharita, &c., are
not mentioned either in the Karikas or in the Sutras, and
this, which has been taken for a sign of their more, recent
date, seems to me, on the contrary, to speak in favour of
an early and independent origin of the Tattva-sanlasa and
its commentary. If these technical terms were modern
inventions, they would occur more frequently in modern
works on the S&mkhya-philosophy, but as far as I know,
they do not.
XVIII. We have still to examine, though as briefly as
possible, the Mulikarthas or eight cardinal facts, that is,
the most important subjects established by the Samkhya2.
They are with regard to Prakriti or Pradhana, its reality
(Astitva), its oneness (Ekatva), its having an object or an
1 The names of the nine Tushfls or contentments are : Ambhas, water,
Salila, Ogha, Vnshrt, Sutftrft, Supftra, Sunotra, Sumari/cika, Uttama
Sattviki. The names of the eight Siddhis are : Tara, Sutara, Tarayanti,
Pramoda, Pramudita, Pramodamfina, Ramyaka, Satpramudita.
a &oc Sawkhya-tattva-kaumudi, p. 59.
SHASETl-TANTRA. ANUGRAHA-SARGA. 271
intention (Arthavattva), and its being intended for some
one else (Parartbya). They are with regard to Purusha
his being different from Prakriti (Anyatva), his not being
an agent (Akartritva), and his being many (Bahutva).
They are with regard to both PrakHti and Purusha, their
-temporary union and separation, while Sthiti, durability, is
said to refer to the Sukshma- and Sthula-sarira, the gross
and the subtle bodies. Astitva, reality, might seem to
belong to both Prakriti and Purusha, but it is meant as
the reality of Prakriti only, which the Samkhya is chiefly
concerned with establishing as against the Vedantins who
deny it with regard to all that is objective, keepingAit for
the subject only, whether he is called Purusha or Atman,
The commentator, however, and Prof. Garbe also, connect
Astitva with Purusha as well as with Prakriti. The matter
is of little consequence, unless Astitva is taken in the sense
of phenomenal or perceptible reality. The highest reality
of the Purusha or the Atman has of course never been
doubted by Samkhya or Vedanta philosophers, but that is
more than mere Astitva.
Shaslili-tantra.
It should be added that the commentator in this place
accounts once more for the name of Sliashti-tantra, the
Sixty-doctrine, but this time by adding the 17 Tushris and
Siddhis, the 33 (Avidya 5-f-Asakti "38) and TO, not 8,
Mulikarthas, and thus arriving at 60 topics. The Chinese
name presupposes a Saptati-sastra, or Seventy-treatise,
probably with reference to the original number of verses
in the.Karika.
Anugraha-sarga.
XIX. But even here the Tattva-samasa is not yet
finished, for it goes on to explain the Anugraha-sarga, lit.
the creation of benevolence, which is explained as the pro-
duction of external objects from the five Tanmatras or
subtle essences for the sake of the Purusha. Brahma, after-
seeing these (the organs of sense ?) produced, but as yet
without a sphere in which their measuring or perceiving
272 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
power could find scope, created for them the so-called
benevolent creation, shaped from the Tanmatras1.
Bhuta-sarga.
XX. After this follows the Bhuta-sarg* in fourteen divi-
sions. The divine creation has eight divisions, consisting
of good and evil spirits and gods, such as Pisafcas, Rakshas,
Yaksha-s, Gandharvas, Indra, Pra^rapati, and Brahma. The
animated creation consists of domestic animals, birds, wild
animals, reptiles, and immovable things or plants. The
human creati'on consists of one, of man only, from Brah-
mans down to ITaricZalas. Domestic animals are from cows
down to mice ; birds from Garuda down to gnats ; wild
animals from lions down to jackals ; reptiles from $esha
(world -serpent) down to worms ; immovable things from
the Parijgrata-tree (in paradise) down to grass. This is the
threefold creation, consisting of gods, men, and animals,
the animals, i. e. living beings, forming again five classes.
Bandlia, Bondage.
XXL If it be asked what the threefold bondage (Bandha)
consists in, it is replied, In the eight Prakritis, in the
sixteen Vikaras, and in DakshiTia (gifts to priests). There
are eight Prakritis, as often described before (pp. 244, 251);
and as long as a man considers these as the highest, he is
absorbed in Prakrit! and bound by Prakriti The" bondage
of the sixteen Vikaras applies both to ascetics and to men
of the world, if they are subdued by the senses, which are
Vikaras, if they are devoted to objects of sense, if their
organs of sense are not in subjection, if they are ignorant
and deluded by passions.
Dakshina-boxidagre, Gifts to Priests.
The priestly bondage applies to those, whether house-
holders, students, mendicants or anchorets, whose minds
are overcome by passions and delusions, and who from
misconception bestow sacrificial gifts on priests. A verse
is quoted here in support : c Bondage is spoken of by the
1 This passage is very doubtful, unloss we connect Mana with Tanmatra,
and take measuring in the sense pf perceiving, so that the creation would
be represented as made for man.
PRAMAJVTA8. 273
name of Prakrtti-bondage, Vikara-bondage, and thirdly
bondage through priestly gifts/ This last bondage seems
to me very important, and it is strange that it should never
have been pointed out as marking the unecclesiastical
and unorthodox character of the Samkhya-philosophy 1.
What would have become of the Brahmans without their
DakshiTias or fees, the very name of a Brahman being
DakshiTiiya, one to be fee'd? In the Aitareya-Br&hma7ia
already we read of Yatis who condemned sacrifices, but
they are said to have been thrown to the jackals. That
this feeing of a priest should have been considered one of
the three bondages shows at all events that the followers
of Kapila were above superstition, and looked upon sacrifice
and priestcraft as hindrances, rather than as helps to true
freedom and'Moksha of the spirit.
Moksha.
XXII. This Moksha, the highest aim of Kapila's philo-
sophy, is again of three kinds, according as it arises from
increase of knowledge, from the quieting of the passions of
the senses, or lastly from the destruction of the whole.
From increase of knowledge and quieting of the passions
of the senses there arises the destruction of all that is
commonly considered as merit and demerit ; and from the
destruction of merit and demerit there arises final beatitude
consisting in complete detachment from the world, and in
concentration of the Purusha in himself.
Fram&nas.
XXIII. The three Prama/ias which follow next require
little explanation here, as they have been fully examined
before 2. Still each system of philosophy takes its own
view of them, and the character of each is more or less
determinedly the view taken of the real nature of know-
ledge. What is most creditable is that each system should -
have recognised the importance of this question, as a pre-
liminary to every philosophy. This distinguishes Indian
philosophy very favourably from other philosophies. All
systems of philosophy in India admit Pratyaksha or per-
1 See, however, KarikA 44. 2 p. 143.
18 T
274 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
ception of the senses as the first of Pram&nas. The Vedanta,
however, looks upon the Veda as the only source of true
knowledge, and actually applies to it the name of Pratya?-
ksha. The ordinary three or six PramaTias of the Mimamsa
would apply to the world of Avidya or nescience only,
never to the true world of Brahman. See Vedanta-Siitras
II, i, 14. The names vary sometimes, but the meaning is
the same. Sensuous perception, if it is meant for what is
perceived, is sometimes called Drishtfam, what is seen;^ and
instead of Veda we meet with /Sabda, word, and Apta-
va&ana (Samkhya), right affirmation. Anumana, inference,
is illustrated by the usual examples, such as, inference of
rain from the rising of clouds, inference of water from the
appearance of cranes, inference of fire from the rising of
smoke. Whatever cannot bej^roved by either sense or
inference has to be accepted as Apta- vafcana, as, for instance,
the existence of Indra, the king of 'the gods, the Northern
Kurus, Meru, the golden mountain, the Apsaras, or nymphs
of Svarga, &c. For all these things, Munis such as Vasish^a
must be accepted as authorities. Apta is explained as
a name for a man who is assiduous in his work, free from
hatred and passion, learned, and endowed with all virtues,
and who can therefore be relied upon. These three Pramamis,
or measures, are so called because in the same way as in
common life grains are measured by measures" such as
a Prastha, and sandal wood, &c., weighed by a balance, the
Tattvas also, the principles, the Bhavas (their modifica-
tions), and the Bhutas, elemental substances, are measured
or proved by the Prama/ft/as.
DuAkha.
XXIV. The last' paragraph in the Taotva-samasa points
back to the first. We saw in the beginning how a Brahman
was introduced who, overcome by threefold pain, took
refuge with the great .Zfo'shi Kapila. If we ask what was
meant by that threefold pain, the answer is that it is
Adhyatmika, Adhibhautika, and Adhidaivika. Adhyatmika
is pain arising from the body, whether produced by wind,
bilo, or phlegm, &c., and from the mind (Manas), such as
is due to desire, anger, greed, folly, envy, separation from
THE TRUE MEANING OF THE SAJlfKHYA. 275
what is liked, union with what is disliked, &c. Adhibhau-
tika is pain that arises from other living beings, such as
thieves, cattle, wild beasts, &c. Adhidaivika is pain that
is caused by divine agents, as pain arising from cold, heat,
wind, rain, thunderbolts, &c., all under the direction of the
Vedic Devas. If a Brahman is affected by this threefold
pain, a desire to know (the reason) arises in him, as a desire
for water arises in a thirsty man. Freedom from pain, or
final beatitude, is to be gained, as we are told, from a study
of the Tattva-samasa. Whoever knows the philosophy
which is contained in the Tattva-samasa, is not born again.
This is the doctrine of the great sage Kapila, and thus is
finished the commentary on the Sutras of the Tattva-samasa.
The True Meaning- of the Samkliya.
In giving an account of the Sa/mkhya, I have followed
entirely the Tattva-§amasa, without mixing it up with the
Karikas or Sutras. I was quite aware that the Karikas or
the Sfttras might have supplied us with a clearer and
better-arranged account of that philosophy. But if I am
right, that the Tattva-samasa is older than either, it seemed
to me more important that we should know what the
Samkhya really was in its original form. By comparing
the Tattva-samasa with the Karikas and Sutras, we can
easily see how this dry system was developed in later
times. But though- the Karikas and Sutras give us a more
systematic account of the Samkhya, all that is essential
can be found in the Samasa, if only we try to arrange the
dry facts for ourselves. It must be confessed, no doubt,
that neither in the Sutras, the Karikas, nor in the Tattva-
samasa, do we find what we most value in every philosophy,
an insight into the mind and heart of the founder of that
philosophical system. If we wore asked why such a system
should ever have been imagined and elaborated, or what
kind of comfort, whether intellectual or moral, it could
have afforded to any human being, we should indeed have
little to answer. All we can learn is that a man crushed
by the burden of what is called the threefold misery, and
seeing no hope of relief either by means of good actions or
of sacrifices, which can promise no more than a temporary
T a
276 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
happiness on earth or in Heaven, should seek advice from
a philosopher, such as Kapila, believing that he could pro-
cure for him entire freedom from all his troubles.
Nature of Fain.
Here we come across something like a really human
sentiment. We can well understand why pain, not only as
actual suffering, but as an apparent anomaly or imperfec-
tion in the universe, should have opened man's eyes to the
fact that there was something wrong or limited in his
nature, and in the world in which he found himself ; and
it is quite intelligible that this consciousness of his limita-
tion-should have acted as the first impulse to an inquiry
for the cause of it. This would naturally lead either to
a religious or to a philosophical solution, and it certainly
did so in India. A religion must have existed already
before this question of the origin of suffering could well
have been mooted : but religion seems rather to have in-
creased the difficulty of the questioner than solved it. The
gods or god, even in their imperfect conception, were
generally supposed to be good and just. How then could
they be the authors of human suffering, particularly of
that suffering, bodily or mental, for which the individual
was clearly not responsible, such as being ' born blind, or
deaf, or dumb, or mad/ This seems to have been keenly
felt by the ancient Indian philosophers, who shrink from
charging any divine power with injustice or cruelty to-
wards men, however low an opinion they may otherwise
have formed of Indra and Agni, nay even of Pra^apati,
Visvakarman or Brahma.
Here then it was that philosophy was called in, nay was
first brought to life, and the answer which it gave as to
the origin of suffering or, in a wider sense, the origin of
evil, was that all that seemed wrong in the world must
have been the effect of causes, of deeds done, if not in this,
then in a former life. No deed (Karman) good or bad,
small or great, could ever be without its effect, its reward
or punishment. This was the fundamental principle of
their ethics, and an excellent principle it was. It was but
another version of what we mean by eternal punishment,
NATURE OP PAIN. 277
without which the world would fall to pieces ; for it has
rightly been observed that eternal punishment is in reality
but another name for eternal love. This idea of eternal
love, however, cannot hang in the air, it presupposes an
eternal lover, a personal God, a creator and ruler of the
world: but even this idea Indian philosophers would not
have taken for granted. In some cases, though allowing
deeds to have their effects, they went so far as to admit at
least the superintending care of a Divine Being, just as the
giver of rain enables seeds to grow, though the seeds them-
selves were the deeds performed by men, as independent
actors, and therefore liable to take all their consequences
upon themselves, whether good or evil.
But though this ought to have sufficed to convince men
that the world was exactly as it ought to be, and could not
have been otherwise, because man himself had made it
what it was, whether as an individual or as a member of
a class, there arose a new question which could not well be
suppressed, namely, Whether it was beyond the power of
man ever to put an end to the unbroken and irresistible
sequence of the effects of the deeds of himself and of his
fellow creatures; whether, in facfc, the cycle of life and
death, or what was called Samsara, would go on for ever.
And here the bold answer was, Yes, the Samsara can be
stopped, * man's former acts can be shaken off and an-
nihilated, but by one means only, by means of knowledge
or philosophy. In order to achieve this deliverance from
all suffering, from all limitation, from all the bondage of
bhe world, man must learn what he really is. He must
learn that he is not the body, for the body decays and dies,
and with it all bodily sufferings might seem to end. But
this is again denied, because through an invisible agency
(Ad?'d'sh£a or Apftrva) a new Ego would spring up, liable to
suffer for its former acts, just as it was in this life. A man
must learn therefore that he is not even what is meant by
the Ego, for the Ego also has been formed by surroundings
or circumstances, and will vanish again like everything
else. Then what remains'? There remains behind the
body, and behind the Ego, or the individual person, what
is called the Purusha or* the Atmaii, the Self, and that Self
278 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
is to be recognised either as identical with what was in
earlier times conceived and called the Divine, the Eternal,
the Unconditioned, namely. Brahman, or as Purusha, per-
fect, independent, and absolute iji itself, blissful in its
independence and in the complete aloofness from every-
thing else. The former was, as we saw, the view of the
Vedanta, the latter is the view of the Samkhya-philosophy.
Both may have had the same roots, but they differ in their
later growth. The view which the Vedanta took of man
has sometimes been mistaken for human apotheosis. But
people forget that for these philosophers there were no
t^eoi left whose company man could have joined, and whose
eminence they could have reached. The Divine which
they meant was the Divine in man, and what they wanted
was reconciliation between the Divine within and the
Divine without. Their Moksha or Nirvana was not meant
for Vergotterung, not even for the Vergottung of Eckhart ;
it was meant for complete freedom, freedom from all
conditions and limitations, selfdom, in fact?/v whether as
recovery of the Divine as Brahman, or as Atman, or as
something beyond all names that had ever been given to
the Divine, as the eternal Subject, undetermined by any
qualities, satisfied and blissful in his own being and in his
own thinking.
Whatever we may think of these two solutions of the
world's great riddle, we cannot but admire their originality
and their daring, particularly if we compare them with
the solutions proposed by other philosophers, whether of
ancient or modern times. None of them seems to me to
have so completely realised what may be called the idea of
the soul as the Phoenix, consumed by the fire of thought
and rising from his own ashes, soaring towards regions
which are more real than anything that can be called real
in this life. Such views cannot be criticised as we criticise
ordinary systems of religion or morality. They are visions,
if you like, but they are visions which, to have seen is like
having been admitted to the vision of another world ; of
A world that must exist, however different in its eternal
silence from what we and from what the ancient seers of
India imagined it to be.
VEDANTA AND SAJ/KflYA. 279
The most curious tiling is that such views could be held
by the philosophers of India without bringing them into
conflict with the representatives of the ancient religion of
the country. It is true that the Samkhya-philosophy was
accused of atheism, but that atheism was very different
from what we mean by it. It was the negation of the
necessity of admitting an active or limited personal god,
arid hence was carefully distinguished in India from the
atheism of the Nastikas or nihilists, who denied the ex-
istence of anything transcendent, of anything beyond our
bodily senses, of anything divine. To call the feamkhya
atheistic, and the Vedanta not, would be philosophically
most unfair, and it does the Indian priesthood great credit
that they treated both systems as orthodox, or at all events
as not prohibited, provided always that the students had,
by a previous severe discipline, acquired the strength and
fitness necessary for so arduous a task.
How different the world of thought in India was from
our own, we may see by an extraordinary defence set up
for the so-called atheism of the Samkhya-philosophy. It
seems to us perfectly absurd, but it was by 110 nieans so/ it-
we consider the popular superstitions of the Hindus at the
time. It was a common belief in India that man could,
by severe penance, raise himself to the status of a god,
or Deva. There are ever so many legends to that effect.
This might no doubt be called apotheosis ; and it was
expressly stated that it was in order to put an end tc^such
vain desires of becoming personal g6ds that Kapila ignored
or left out of \aestion the existence of such theomorphic or
anthropomorphic beings as could ever excite the rivalry of
men. We are hardly prepared for such explanations, and
yet in India they seem quite bond fide.
Vedanta and Samkhya.
We have thus finished our account of the Vedanta and
of the Sumkhya-philosophy. At first sight no two philo-
sophies would seem to be so different from each other, nay,
to start from such opposite points of view as the Ved&nta
and the S&mkhya. - The Yedantist of the school of £am-
kara looks upon the whole world, including animate and
280 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
inanimate nature, including the small gods and the still
smaller men, as a phenomenal manifestation of an unknown
power which he calls Brahman. There is nothing beside
it, nothing that can be called real except this one invisible
Brahman. Then came the question, But whence this pheno-
menal world ? or rather, as he starts with the idea of there
being but one real being from eternity to eternity, How
could that Eternal Brahman ever give rise to the world,
not only as its efficient, but also as its material cause, if
indeed there is anything material in the objects known to
the Vedantist ? Under the circumstances thus given, but
one answer is possible, That Brahman is the world, and
that the world, so far as it is Brahman, but so far only, is
real. The phenomenal world, such as we see it and live in
it, is changeful, ever passing away, and consequently never,
in the Vedantic sense of that word, real. We never see it
or know it, as it really is, until we have become Vedantists,
It is impossible to think that this eternal Being, whatever
name be given to it, could ever change or be changed. This
view of the universe as a development of Brahman was
possibly the original view taken by BadarayaTia, and it
was clearly that of Ramanugra and his followers, who
explain the world as an evolution (Parmama). But this
was not $amkara's theory* He accepts the two facts that
the world is changing and unreal, and yet that the real
cause of it, that is, Brahman, is incapable of change.
Ved&nta, Avidyft,, and Aviveka.
Hence nothing remains but to ascribe the changeful
phenomenal character of the world to something else, and,
according to the Vedanta, to ignorance, not, however, to
our individual ignorance, but to some primeval ignorance
directed towards Brahman as manifested and seen. This
ignorance or Avidya, again, is not to be called real, it is
nothing by the side of Brahman, nothing therefore that
could ever have dominion over Brahman. All such views
are excluded by the postulate that Brahman is free, is one
and all ; though here again, other Vedstntists differ from
£amkara, and represent Avidya as an actual power ($akti)
of Brahman, or as M&y&, i. e. illusive power, which in fact
SAJ/KHYA, AVIVEKA. 28 i
performs, or is answerable for what we call creation. We
should of course ask at once, Whence comes that Avidya or
that Maya, and what is it ? How can it be anything, if not
again Brahman, the only thing that exists? The answer
given by $amkara, which satisfied his mind, if not the
minds of other Vedaiitists, was that we know as a fact
that Avidya or Nescience is there, but we also know that
it is not there, as soon as we see through it, in fact, as
soon as we are able to annihilate it by Vidya or knowledge,
such as is given to us by the Yedanta-philosophy. The
Vedantist holds that nothing that can be annihilated can
claim true reality for itself. Therefore Avidya, though it
is, must not be called something real. The great difficulty
how Brahman could ever be affected by Avidya, which is
a weakness or a defect, is avoided by looking upon Brah-
man, while affected by Avidya or seen through Avidya, as
for the time under a cloud or forgetful of itself, but never
really unreal. We ourselves also, that is the individual
souls, can be in full reality nothing but Brahman, though
for a while we are divided from it, because forgetful of
Brahman through Avidya. While that state of Avidya
lasts the true Brahman, neuter, may become to us Brahma,
masculine, may become the creator and ruler of the world,
and, as such, receive worship from his creatures. But as
soon as -the cloud of Avidya is lifted, this creator also re-
cedes and is restored at once to his true state and dignity.
He, the so-called tsvara, or Lord, or Creator, becomes what
he is and always has been, the whole Brahman ; and we
ourselves also remember and thereby recover our true
Brahmahood, or Selfhood, not as if we had ever been
divided from it, but only as having been blinded* for a
while by Avidya so as to forget ourselves, our true Self,
that is Brahman.
S&mkliya, Aviveka.
The Sa/mkhya takes what seems a very different attitude
towards the problem of the world. These attitudes towards
the world form indeed the kernel of every philosophy. If
we call the Ved&nta monistic, the Samkhya is decidedly
dualistic. It accepts the whole objective universe as real,
282 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
and calls it Prakr^ti, a word often translated by Nature,
but in reality untranslatable, because the idea which it
represents has never arisen in our philosophy. Prakr/ti may.
be called the undeveloped matter or Urbtoff, containing in
itself the possibilities of all things. By itself it has no
consciousness, it simply grows or develops into conscious-
ness when seen by Purusha. And it develops not only
into an objective or material world, but at the same time,
into what we should call the subjective or intellectual world,
supplying the instruments of perception and thought, both
what perceives and what is perceived. The "question
whence it came is never asked, as little as we could ask
that question with regard to Brahman. It is, it has been,
and it has had no beginning. But^in order to account for
the world of experience, it is supposed that this undeveloped
Prakriti is always operative, so long as it is noticed or
perceived by a Purusha (Self), and always passing through
a process of evolution. This is an important condition.
Prakriti is at work so long only as it is perceived by
a Purusha or a true Self. This would come very near to
the recognition of the subjectivity of all our knowledge,
and to the recognition that the world exists for us in the
form of knowledge only. If we call Prakriti matter, the
Samkhya philosopher saw clearly enough that dead, dull,
.inert matter alone would not account for the world. There-
fore he makes Prakriti, under the eye of a Purusha,
develop into Buddhi, commonly translated by perception,
but really a kind of perception that involves something
like what we should call intellect (vovs). What, as far as
I can see, is really meant by Buddhi in this place, is the
lighting up of Prakriti or dull matter by intelligence, so
as to render it perceptive, and also perceptible. It is the
Indian ' Let there be light/ In this stage Prakriti is called
Mahat, the jjreat, possibly in order to indicate its impor-
tance in the great development of the universe. It cannot
be taken here in an exclusively psychological seme, though
it supplies, no doubt, the possibility of the intelligence of
the individual also. In the cosmical sense the development
of the world is often spoken of as Samashti, in the psycho-
logical sense, ana as applied to each individual it goes by
SAJfKHYA, AV1VEKA. 283
the name of Vyash^i. Thus Vif//7ana-Bhikshu (Samkhya-
Sutras I, 63) remarks : As, according to passages of Sruti
and Smriti, such as (JiMnd. Up. VI, 2, 3) ' Let me multiply
myself, let me procreate/ the creation of the elements, £c.,
is preceded by Abhimana (i.e. Ahamkara or subjectivity),
it follows that this Abhimana is really the cause of the
creation of the world, as preceded by an activity of Buddhi,
i.e. the cosmical Buddhi, and not simply the personal organ
of deciding, as Buddhi is generally explained when part of
the individual or psychological development. For short-
ness sake, it is sometimes said that Abhimana or Ahamkara
is the cause of creation, for in the end all the Vikaras or
evolutes serve one and the same purpose. Buddhi exists
in human nature as the power of perception, and it is then,
though not quite correctly, identified with Manas or AntaA-
kara??a, the mental activity going on within us, which
combines and regulates the impressions of the senses, as we
shall see hereafter. But as a cosmic force, Buddhi is that
which gives light as the essential condition of all know-
ledge; and is afterwards developed into the senses, the
powers of light and thought, two ideas often comprehended
by the root Budh, to awaken or to perceive. Budh means
literally to awake. And as a sleeping person is dull and
inert to the world, but begins to perceive as soon as he is
awake, 'Prakriti also is inert till it is awakened (Pra-
buddha),and thus becomes Buddhi, perceiving or perception.
This Buddhi, however, which, as we must always
remember, is here conceived as a development of Prakriti,
and *is, as yet, neither subjective nor objective, requires
a new development before it can serve for conscious
intellectual -work. Perception, according to the Samkhya,
cannot work without Ahamkara, literally I-making or
Egoism, but philosophically used with a much larger
meaning, namely, if I am right, as that which produces
the sense of subject, and in consequence of object also.
Nature, in spite of being lighted up or rendered capable of
perceiving and being perceived, requires, 3ven after it has
reached the stage of Buddhi, the division of the whole
world, that is, of itself, into subject and object, before any
real perception can take place. Subjectivation, therefore,
284 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
would seem to be the nearest approach, though naturally
there can be no subject! vation without simultaneous objee-
tivation.
After this development of Prakriti into Buddhi, and its
differentiation as subjective and objective, the next step is
that it produces the Tanmatras, the elements of the senses
as well as of the sense-objects, such as sight and light,
hearing and sound, smelling and odour, tasting and savour,
feeling and touch. All these, the faculties as well as the
corresponding qualities of sense-perception, are modifica-
tions of the same Prakriti, and therefore in one sense the
same thing, only viewed from different points of view, as
we should say, as subjective and objective, and as changed
at last into the material reality of the sentient powers on
one side, and the objective world on the other. Lastly, all
this development remains without real consciousness, till it
attracts the attention of some Purusha, Spirit or Self, who
by becoming conscious of PrakHti and all its works, pro-
duces what is the only reality of which we have any
conception, the phenomenal reality of a self-conscious* soul.
I hope I have understood this train of thought rightly, but
there is much that requires fuller light. Does Kapila
really look upon perception and thought as an instrument,
ready made by Prak?*iti for the use of the Purusha, but
remaining inert, like a telescope, till it is looked through
by the Purusha, or is it the first glance of Purusha at
Prakriti in its state of Avyakta or chaos, that gives the
first impulse to the activity of Prakriti, which impulse
is generally ascribed to the working of the Gunas? Much
may be said for either view. I do not feel competent to
pronounce so decided an opinion as others have done on this
subject.
If the Vedantist explains what we call Creation as the
result of Avidya or Nescience, the Samkhya explains it by
the temporary union between Purusha and Prakrzti. This
union is said to arise from a want of discrimination
(Aviveka), and it is not in the highest sense a real union,
because it vanishes again by discriminating knowledge
(Viveka), nay, it is actually said to have the one object
only of evoking at last in the Purusha a revulsion, and in
ATM AN AND PUEUSHA. 285
the end a clear recognition of his complete independence,
and his freedom from Prakriti (K£rik& 66); Thus the
creation of the phenomenal world and our position in the
phenomenal world are due to Nescience (Avidya) with
the Vedantist, but to a want of discrimination (Aviveka)
with the Samkhya philosopher (S. S. I, 55), and this want
of discrimination is actually called by the Vedantie term of
Avidya in the Yoga-Sutras II, 24. Where then, we may
well ask, is the difference between the two views of the
universe ? There is a difference in the mode of representa-
tion, no doubt, but in the end both Vedanta' and S&mkhya
look upon what we call reality as the result of a temporary
error, call it nescience, illusion, want of discrimination, or
anything else. If, therefore, philosophers like Vi#/7ana-
Bhikshu recognised this original similarity in the tendencies
both of the Vedanta and the Samkhya, it is hardly fair to
blame them as having mixed and confounded the two. No
doubt these two philosophies diverged in their later develop-
ment, but they started with the same object in view, and
they advanced for a time in the same direction. If the
Vedantists desired to arrive at what A is called Atm&-
anatma-viveka, discrimination between Atman and Anat-
man, the Samkhyas looked forward to Prakriti-purusha-
viveka, discrimination between Purusha and Prakriti.
Where then is the difference 1 If their later defenders forgot
their common interest and laid greater stress on the points
of difference than on the points of similarity between them,
it was but right that those who could see deeper, should
bring to light whatever features there were left of the
original family likeness between the two philosophies.
Atman and Fnrnsha.
Greater, however, than the difference between Nescience,
Avidya, and want of discrimination, Aviveka, as the causes
of the world, according to Vedanta and Samkhya, is that
between the Brahman of the Vedanta, and the many
Purushas of the Samkhya. According to $amkara the
individual souls are not, according to Kapila they are.
According to the former there is in reality but one Atman
or Self, as it were, one sun rcllected in the countless waves
286 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
of the world-ocean ; according to the Latter there are many
Purushas, as many as there are divine, human, animal, and
vegetal souls, and their plurality is conceived as eternal,-
not as phenomenal only. On this point, therefore, there is
a radical difference ; and this is due, as it seems to me, to
a want of accurate reasoning on the part of the Samkhyas.
Such a peculiarity must not be slurred over in an account
of the Samkhya-philosophy, but it is fair to point out what
the reason of this aberration may have been. From a
higher point of view the Purusjia of Kapila is really the
same as the Brahman or the Atman of the Vedanta, the
absolute subject. It differs only in that the Purusha was
never conceived as the material cause of the universe, while
Brahman was, though, of course, with the important pro-
viso that everything material was due to Nescience. Apart
from that, if the Purusha was meant as absolute, as eternal,
immortal, and unconditioned, it ought to have been clear to
Kapila that the plurality of such a Purusha would involve
its being limited, determined or conditioned, and would
render the character of it self-contradictory. Kapila has
certainly brought forward every possible argument in
support of the plurality of individual Purushas, but ho
has forgotten that every plurality presupposes an original
unity, and that as trees in the last resort presuppose the
tree, as men are descended from man, call him Adam or
Manu or any other name, many Purushas, from a meta-
physical point of view, necessitate the admission of one
Purusha, just as the many gods had to be recognised as in
reality the One God without a second, and at last as mere
mistakes of Brahman. In this way Vigwana-Bhikshu was
right that Kapila did not differ so much from Badarayawa
as it would seem, because, if the Purushas were supposed
to be many, they would not be Purushas, and being Purusha
they wouid by necessity cease to be many. It may be said
that this is going beyond Kapila, but surely we have a right
to do so.
It is necessary, at all events, that we should see all this
clearly, just as Vi(//?ana-Bhikshu and other philosophers
saw it clearly, in order to perceive the unity that underlies
the apparent diversity in the philosophy of India. Nor
ATM AN AND URUSHA. 287
should we ever forget that our philosophical Sfttras, what-
ever their age, whether of. the fourteenth century A.D. or
4he fifth century B.C., are but the last outcome of the
philosophical activity of a whole country, and that we
are entirely ignorant of their historical antecedents. We
should remember that the grammatical Sutras of PaTiini
are* contradicted again and again by grammatical forms
which have fortunately been preserved to us in the earlier
Brahmainas and Mantras of the Vedic period. We have no
such remnants of an earlier period of philosophy anterior
to the Sutras, with the exception of the as yet unsystema-
tised Upanishads, and possibly of some of the more ancient
parts of the Mahabharata ; but in other respects we are
left without any earlier facts, though not without a firm
conviction that such perfect systems as we find in the
Sutras cannot have sprung up in a day, still less from one
brain, but that they must have passed through many
changes for better or for worse, before they could assume
that final and permanent form in which they are now pre-
sented to us in literature. The Sutras are, in fact, the final
outcome of ages of inquiry and discussion.
It would seem then to follow from Vi#/?ana-Bhikshu's
remarks, that in India a philosopher might at one and the
same time have been a follower of the Vedanta as well as
of the Samkhya, if he could only see that, where the two
follow different roads, they started nevertheless from the
same point and were proceeding towards the same goal.
If this is seen and accepted in a historical spirit, it can dq
no harm, though no doubt there is danger of the distinctive
features of each system becoming blurred, if we dwell too
much on what they share in common or on what they may
have shared in common at an earlier period of their
growth. In one respect Vi(//7ana-Bhikshu, to mention
him only, has certainly seen more rightly by not resorting
at once to the idea that actual borrowing must have taken
place, whenever Vedanta and S&mkhya shared the same
ideas. We should always remember that there must have
been a period of unrestricted growth of philosophical
thought in ancient India, and that during that period philo-
sophical ideas, whether true or false, were common property
288 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
and could bo freely adopted by different schools of philo-
sophy. It was in the Stitras that these schools became
sterilised and petrified.
Cn one point Vi<7r/ana-Bhikshu may have gone too far,
yielding to a temptation which does not exist for us. To
him not only Vedanta and Samkhya, but all the six-
Darcanas or systems of philosophy were orthodox, they
were all Sm?^ti, though not $ruti. Hence his natural
desire to show that they did not on any essential points
contradict each other. After he had reconciled to his own
satisfaction the conflicting tenets of Vedanta and Samkhya,
and had certainly, at least to my mind, succeeded in dis-
covering the common background of both of them, he
attempted to do the same for the Nyaya and Vaiseshika,
These two, as he says, as they represent the Self as en-
dowed with qualities, might seem to be contradicted by
the Vedanta and Samkhya which show that the Self, or
the Purusha, cannot be endowed with qualities ; but this is
not so. Nyaya and Vaiseshika are intended, as he thinks,
as a first step only towards the truth ; and though they
admit the Self to be qualified by pain and joy, they teach
that the Self is at all events different from the body. This
is what marks the first advance toward a right under-
standing of the Self, not only as different from the body,
but as unaffected by pain and joy, as neither suffering nor
enjoying, as 'neither thinking nor acting in any way. To
the followers of the Nyaya-philosophy also, Brahman, the
Absolute, is Anirvafcamya, undefinable or inexpressible.
The full light, however, of the Samkhya-doctrine might
dazzle the beginner, and hence, according to Vigwana-
Bhikshu, the usefulness of the Nyaya and Vaiseshika, as
slowly preparing him for the acceptance of the highest
truth. There does not, however, seem to be any ancient
evidence to support this view of Vi^/^^na-Bhikshu's, that
the Nyaya and Vaiseshika were intended as a preparation
only, still less that they existed as systems before the
doctrines of the Samkhya began to influence the thinkers
of India. The Samkhya is indeed mentioned in the Maha-
bharata (XII, in, 98) as the highest truth, but the other
systems are never represented as merely preparations for
THE SASTRA. 289
it. They present themselves as independent philosophies,
quite as much as the other Darsanas: nor do I remember
sany passage where Gotama and Kanada themselves repre-
sent their teaching as a mere step leading to the higher
knowledge of Vedanta or Samkhya, nor any utterance of
Badarayana or Kapila to the effect that such preparation
.was required.
Origin of Avidy&.
The question which the Samkhya may seem to have left
unanswered, but which is really unanswerable, is, How
this Aviveka, this failure of Purusha to recognise himself
as distinct from Prakr/ti, could ever have arisen, and how
and by what stages the development of Prakriti may be
supposed to have taken place which led in the end to the
delusion of Purusha and made him look on the senses, on
the Manas (central sense), on the Aham or ego, nay on
Buddhi or intellect, on everything, in fact, within his
experience, as belonging to him, as his own ? What Kapila
wishes to teach is that nothing is in reality his own or
belongs to him except his Self, or, as he calls it, the Purusha.
iHere we can observe a real difference between Samkhya
and Ved&nta. And while in all these discussions Badara-
yatia had only to appeal to the Veda in support of any one
iof his statements, Kapila, with all his regard for Aptava-
fcana, had evidently meant to reason out his system bj
himself, though without any declared antagonism to the
<;\^edas. Hence the Sutras of Kapila received the name of
Manana-sastra, institute of reasoned truth.
The /S&stra.
If then it is asked how Kapila came to know anything
about Prakr^ti or Ur staff which, as superintended by
Purusha, is said to stand for the whole of creation, and
how we ourselves can know anything about its various
developments, beginning with Buddhi or intellect, and
fing on from Buddhi to Ahamkara, the making of the
or Ego, or subjectivity as inseparable from objectivity,
and from Ahamkara to the Tanmatras or subtle substances,
&c., we have to confess with the author of the Samkhya-
19 U
290 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
sara that there Was nothing but the Sastra itself to
depend on in support of what may be felt to be very crude
and startling assertions1. $astra sometimes stands for
Veda, but it cannot well be taken in that sense here. It
seems rather to point to the existence of a treatise, such as
the Sa?nkhya-karikli or the original text of the Samkhya-
Sutras, or the whole body of Samkhya-philosophy, as
handed down from time immemorial in various schools in
India. At first sight, ns doubt, it seems strange to us to
derive Buddhi or Intellect from Prakriti, nature, or from
Avyakta, the undeveloped. But we must remember that
all these English renderings are very imperfect. Prakriti
is very different from nature or 4>vcrty, though there is
hardly a more convenient term to render it by. In the
Samkhya-philosophy Prakriti is a postulated something
that exists, and that produces everything without being
itself produced. When it is called Avyakta, that means
that it is, at first, chaotic, undeveloped, and invisible.
Development of Prakrtti, Cosmic.
In place of this one Prakriti we often read of eight
Prakritis, those beginning with Buddhi or the Mahat
being distinguished as produced as well as producing,
while the first, the Avyakta, is producing only, but not
produced. This need not mean more than that ~the seven
modifications (Vikaras) and/orms of Prakriti are all effects,
and serve again as causes, while the Avyakta itself, the
undeveloped Prakriti, has no antecedent cause, but serves
as cause only for all the other forms of Prakriti.
Retrospect.
After going through the long list of topics wliich form
the elements of the Samkhya-philosophy, it may be well
to try to give a more general view of Kapila's system.
1 For the actual succession in the evolution of Ahnwkara from the
Mahat, and of the Mahat from Praknti, &c., the .Sastra alone, we are
told, can be our authority, and not inference, because inference can only
l*a<l us to the conclusion that all effects must have a cause, while there
is no inference to prove either the succession beginning with the
element*, or that beginning with the mind in the way in which the
toadies. Then what is meant by Sastra here ?
RETROSPECT. 2QI
Whether we begin with the beginning, the postulated
Prakr/ti, or with the end, the phenomenal world as re-
flected by the Indriyas arid the Manas, it is but natural
that Kapila should have asked himself the question how
what was postulated as the beginning, the undeveloped
Prakriti, could account for all that was to follow, or how
ill that did follow could be traced back to this postulated
Prakriti. Given t1 undeveloped Praknti, he imagined
that it was due to the? disturbance of the equilibrium of its
three constituents (Curias) that it was first awakened to
life and light or thought, to physical and intellectual
activity. Some such impulse is required by ail meta-
physicians, a Ttp&rov KWOVV. r This first step in the develop-
ment of Prakriti, this first awakening of the inert substance,
is conceived by Kapila as Buddhi, the lighting up, and
hence, so long as it is* confined to Prakriti, described as
Prakaga, or light, the chief condition of all perception.
After Praktvti has thus been lighted up and become Buddhi,
or potential perception, another distinction was necessary
in this luminous and perceiving mass, in this so-called
Mahat or Buddhi, namely, the differentiation between per-
ceiver and what is perceived, between subject and object.
This was the work assigned, J believe, to Ahamkara,
which I should prefer to translate by subjectivation (Sub-
jeciwirting, Garbe) rather than by Ego or 'Egoism.
This step from Buddhi to Ahamkara has been compared
to JDes Cartes' Oogito ergo sum \, but is it not rather Sum,
ergo cogito, as showing that being itself would be impos-
sible unless it were first lighted up, and differentiated into
subject and object ; that t-sse, in fact, is jwcipi, or evon
pemipere ?
When the evolution of the Avyakta has gone so far, the
question arises, how this process of perception could take
place, how perception is possible subjectively, how it is
possible objectively. If we begin with the objective side,
the answer of Xn^iid is thai- there must be Tamnatnis
(This-only), potential perceptib'dia, which are not the poten-
tialities of everything in general, but of this and this only
1 Davies, Hindu Philosophy, p. rS.
U 2
2Q2 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
(Tan-matra). These five potentialities are Sound, Touch,
Odour, Light, and Taste. They are not yet what is actually
heard, seen, &c., nor what actually hears and sees, but th£y
contain the possibilities of both. As there is no hearing
without sound, the Samkhyas seem to have argued, neither
is there any sound without hearing. But there is in the
Tanmatras the potentiality of both. Hence, according to
the division produced by Ahamkara into subject and object,
the five Tanmatras are realised as the five subjective
powers of perception, the powers of hearing, touching,
smelling, seeing, and tasting, and corresponding to them
as the five objects of sense, the objects of sound, touch,
odour, sight, and taste. In their final form the five potential
Tanmatras stand before us in their material shape, sub-
jectively as ear, skin, nose, eyes, and tongue, objectively as
ether, air, light, water, and earth (the lite Mahabhutas).
These five supply all possible and real fortos under which
perception can and does take place.
It should be remembered, however, that in order to
account for perception such as it really is, another, a sixth
sense, is necessary, in addition to the five, which is called
Manas, generally translated by mind, but really, a kind of
central organ of perception, acting as a door-keeper, meant
to prevent the crowding in of perecptic s, to arrange them
into percepts, and, as we should say, into concepts also,
being in fact the conditio sine qud nan of all well-ordered
and rational thought One might feel inclined to translate
Manas by brain, if brain had not become so unscientific
a term in our days. It might also be called the point of
attention and apperception, but even this would hardly
help us to a cltear view of what Kapila really meant by
Manas. Only we must guard against taking this Marias,
or mind, for the true Self. 'Manas is as much a mere
instrument of knowledge and a pfjduct of Prakwti as the
five senses. They all are necessary for the work of percep-
tion, conception, and all the rest, us a kind of clockwork, quite
different from the highest Self, whether it is called
Atman or Pnrusha. The Purusha watches the clockwork,
an-1 is for a time misled into believing in his identity with
the worki HITS of Prakr^ti.
IS SLVKHYA IDEALISM 293
This is but a poor attempt to make the Samkhya view*,
of being and knowing intelligible, and I am far from main-
taining that we have gained, as yet, a full insight into the
problems which troubled Kapila, or into the solutions
which he proposed. What I feel is, that it is not enough
simply to repeat the watchwords of any ancient philosophy,
which are easily accessible in the Sutras, but that we must
at least make an attempt to bring those ancient problems
near to us, to make them our own, and try to follow the
ancient thinkers along the few footsteps which they left
behind.
There is an illustration in the Samkhya-tattva-Kaurnudi
36, which suggests a very different view of the process of
knowing, and deserves to be taken into consideration : ' As
the seniors of a village/ they say, * collect taxes from the
householders and hand them over to the governor of
the district, who again remits them to the treasurer, and
the treasurer to the king, thus do the outer senses, when
they have perceived anything, hand it on to the inner
sense, the Manas, the organ which determines what there
is and then hands it over to Ahamkara, and the Ahamkara,
after appropriating it, to the Buddhi, the supreme Lord.'
Here Buddhi, though supreme, is decidedly different from
the cosmic Buddhi that springs from the Avyakta and
leads to jihamkara ; nor is it easy to see how these two
Buddhis, or rather that one Buddhi in its two functions,
could have been admitted by one and the same philosopher.
In S&mkhya Idealism?
There is another point on which it ib difficult to come to
a clear understanding. We are asked whether the Hindus
fully realised the fact that we are conscious of our sensa-
tions only, arid that all we call bodies, or the outside or
objective world, is no more than the result of an irresistible
inference of our mind, which may be called Aviclya. We
are conscious, no doubt, that we are not ourselves the
cause of our sensations, that we do n®t make the sky, but
that it is given us. But beyond that, our world is only an
inductive world, it is, so to say, our creation ; we make the
sky concave or blue, and all that remains, after deducting
294 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
both the primary and secondary qualities, is Prakriti as
looked at by Purusha, or, as v. 3 should say, das Ding an
&ieh, which we can never know directly. It is within us,
or under our sway; that this Prakrvti has grown to all that
it is, not excluding our own bodies, our senses, our Manas,
our Tanmatras, our Ahawkara, our Buddhi. Was this the
view ta\en by the Samkhyas? Did they see that the
San&ara, the development of the world, takes place within
us, is our* growth, though not our work, that the light
which, as Buddhi emerges from Prak?*iti, is the light
within us that has the power of perceiving by its light ;
that both* the Aham, the Ego. and the Tvam, the Non-Ego,
determine not only ourselves, but the whole world, and
that what we call the Teal, the sensuously perceiving and
perceived world, is no more than the development of
thoughtless nature as reflected through the senses on our
enchanted Self? The riddle of the world which the
Samkhya-philosophy has to solve would then be no more
than to account for the mistaken interest which the Self
takes in that reflex, the consciousness which he assumes of
it, the fundamental error by which, for a time at least, he
actually identifies himself with those images This identi-
fying process would, from , this point of view, really take
the place of what we call creation. The closing of the
mental eyelids would be the dropping of the curtain and
the close of the drama of the world ; and this final recogni-
tion of our cosmic misconception would lead the Self back
from the stage of the world to himself, would undo all
creation, and put an end to that suffering which is the
result of bondage or finiteness.
It sometimes seems to me as if such views had been at
the bottom of ail Hindu philosophy, though forgotten
again or obscured by a belief in that reality which deter-
mines our practical life ( VyavaMra). By admitting this
blending of cosmic and psychological views, much in the
Samkhya-philosophy would cease to be obscure, the Buddhi
of the world and the Buddhi of ourselves would indeed
become one, and the belief in the reality of things, both
objective and subjective, might truly be explained as due
to Aviveka, the absence of discrimination between the Self
PUBUSHA AND P&A&2/II. ?95
and the imagery of nature. It would become intelligible
why Prakriti should be supposed to play her part so lovfcg
Only as it was noticed by Purusha ; it would explain why
Prakriti, by itself, was taken as A&etana, objective, thought-
less, and the Purusha only as subjective, conscious and
thinking; why in its solitude Purusha was conceived as
not active, but Prakriti as always active; why Purusha
should sometimes mean the eternal Self, and sometimes
man such as he is or imagines himself to be, while in-
terested in the world, believing in the world, and yet with
a constant longing after a higher and truer state, freedom
from the world, freedom from pain, freedom from all cosmic
being, freedom as alone with himself.
and Prakrtti.
But if we may credit the founders of the Samkhya,
whether Kapila or Asuri or Pa//&asikha, with such ad-
vanced views, if they really had made it quite clear to
themselves that human beings cannot have anything but
their own knowledge, we can understand why they should
have represented the whole process of perception and com-
bination, all joy and pain, and, in consequence, all willing
also, as belonging, not to the Purusha or the Self, but to
a stranger, to the Manas, and indirectly to Prakriti, while
the Purusha, when he seems to see, to combine, to rejoice,
to suffer, and to will, does so by . misapprehension only,
like a spectator who is carried away by his sympathies for
Hecuba, but who in the end dries his tears and stops his
sighs, leaves the theatre of the world, and breathes the
fresh air of a bright night. The Samkhya uses this very
simile. The whole development of Prakriti, it is said,
takes place only when Purusha is looking on the dancer,
that is, on Prakr/ti, in. all her disguises. If he does not
look, she does not dance for him, and as soon as he turns
his eyes entirely away from her, she altogether ceases to
try to please him. She may please others who are still
looking at her, and so far it may be said that she is never
annihilated, because there will always be new Pumshas to
be enchanted and enchained for awhile, but at last to be
set free by her.
296 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
State of Fnrusha, when Free.
Often has the question been asked, What then becomes of
the Purusha, after the spell of Prakriti has been broken,
and he has ceased to take any interest in the phantasma-
goria of the world, thrown on him by the Manas and all the
products of Prakriti that support the Manas. But this is a
question which no philosophy can be expected to answer.
All that can be said is that Purusha, freed from all
Prakntic bonds, whether ignorance or knowledge, joy or
sorrow, would remain himself, would be what he alone can
be, unrestricted, not interfered with, free and independent,
and hence, in the highest sense of the word, perfect and
happy in himself. This ineffable state of bliss has naturally
shared the fate of similar conceptions, such as the oneness
with Brahman, the NiAsreyaga or Non plus ultra, and the
Nirv&na of the Buddhists. In the eyes of less advanced
thinkers, this unfathomable bliss assumed naturally the
character of paradisiacal happiness painted in the most
brilliant and even sensuous colours, while to the truly
enlightened it represented tranquillity ($anti), perfect rest,
and self-satisfaction. While I agree with Dr. Dahlmann 1
that the Buddhist idea of NirvS/rca was the same, origin-
ally, as that of the higher bliss of the Ved&nta and Sam-
khya-philosophy, I cannot believe that it was borrowed by
the Buddhists from either of those systems. Nirvana was
one of the ideas that were in the air in India, and it was
worked out by Buddha as well as by Kapila and Badara-
yana, but by each in his own fashion. The name itself,
like many technical terms of Buddha's teaching, was no
doubt Brahmanic. It occurs in the Ved&nta, though it is
absent in the Samkhya-Sfttras. We see in the Buddhist
Suttas how it was used by the Buddhists, at first, in the
simple sense of freedom from passion, but was developed
higher and higher, till in the end it became altogether
negative. If it had been simply taken over by Buddha
from some individual teacher of an established philosophy,,
it would betray its origin, while we see it spring up as
1 Nirvana, eine Studie zur Vorgeschichte des Buddhismus von Joseph
Dahlmann, S.J. Berlin, 1896.
MEANING OF PAIN. 297
naturally in Buddha's philosophy as in that of Badarayana
and Kapila. They all took their materials from the same
stratum of thought, and elaborated them into systems,
probably about the same time. But in spite of Dr. Dahl-
mann's very learned and very able pleading, I must say
once more that I cannot yet see any evidence for supposing
that either Buddha borrowed direct from Kapila or that
Kapila borrowed from Buddha.
Kapila does not enter into a minute analysis of his Nir-
vaTia, or, as he calls it. Kaivalya, aloneness. His object was
to show how pam arose and how pain can be absolutely
removed. If freedom from limitation and pain is happi-
ness, that happiness can be secured by the Samkhya just
as much as by the Vedanta and the Buddhist;philosophy J
but though the Vedantist admits happiness (Ananda) by
the side of existence and perception (SaWfcit), as peculiar
to the highest Brahman, he does not attempt to explain
what kind of happiness he means; and some Vedanta
philosophers have actually objected to Ananda or happi-
ness as a positive predicate of the .highest Brahman.
Negatively, however, this happiness may surely be defined
as freedom from pain, freedom from all limits or fetters,
and therefore perfect bliss.
Meaning of Pain.
It would seem extraordinary, and wholly unworthy of
a great philosopher, if Kapila had had eyes for the ordinary
sufferings only which are entailed 011 all the sons of men.
He must have known that there is happiness also for them,
and something between suffering and happiness, the even
tenour of a man's life. Kapila meant something else by
pain. He seems to have felt what Schelling felt, that sad-
ness cleaves to all finite life, but that is very different from
always being intent on getting rid of the sufferings inherent
-in life on earth. Kapila evidently meant by Du/^kha or
pain something more than physical or even mental suffer-
ing, namely the consciousness of being conditioned, limited,
or fettered, which is inseparable from this life. But what-
ever suffering he may have meant, the method suggested
by him for its removal is certainly bold and decided. All
298 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
this suffering, he tells us, is not, as we imagine, our suffer-
ing. Like the whole evolution of Prakriti, this suffering
also belongs to Prakriti and not to ourselves, not to the.
Purushas.
Punisha.
In order to explain the world, we have to admit not only
Prakriti, rising in the form of Buddhi, Ahamkara, and
Manas to the height or the depth of individual existence,
perception, and action, but likewise another quite indepen-
dent being, the Purusha, the real or the better and truer
Self, and therefore very much the Asame as the Atman of
the Vedanta. Both Purusha and Atman, it should be re-
membered, are absent in Buddha's teaching, and by their
removal the idea of Nirvana has become almost meaning-
less. But on this point also we must wait for further
light.
With Kapila the Purusha or Self always remains, after
as well as before his release. It is true he is only the
looker on of all that takes place through Prakriti, looking
as it were into a glass m which all the doings of Prakriti
are mirrored. For a time by some strange want of discern-
ment, this Purusha, always one of many Purushas, forgets
his true nature and identifies himself with this image of
Prakriti. He imagines therefore that he himself «ees and
hears, that he himself suffers and rejoices, that he himself
is an I, really possessing all that the world offers to him,
and unwilling to give it up again, whether in life or in
death. His very body, however, his organs of sense, nay
his mind and his individuality, are neither he, nor his ; and
if he can only learn the wisdom of Kapila, he is for ever
above the body, above all sensation, above all suffering.
Nay Prakriti even, which has no soul, but acts only as im-
pelled by her nature when looked at by Purusha, ceases her
jugglery as soon as Purusha turns away.
Prakrit! an Automaton?
It might possibly help us to understand the relation be-
tween Purusha and Prakriti better, if we saw in Prakriii
an automaton, such as Des Cartes described, performing all
PRAKff/TlS UNSELFISHNESS. 2Q9
the functions which we consider our own and which are
common to man and animals, as in fact a mere mechanism,
•and if we took the rational soul, the Purusha, as the chose
pensante, superadded to the automaton. It was Professor
Huxley who showed that, as a consequence of this assump-
tion, all our mental conditions might be regarded as simply
the symbols (Pratibimba) in consciousness of the changes
which take place automatically in the organism. In the
same way all the changes of Prakriti, from mere sensation
to conceptual thought, might be taken as including pain
and joy arid consequent action, the working of Prakriti,
independent of the looker on, although that looker on in
his enchanted state imagines that he is himself doing what
in reality Prakriti is doing for him. This is beautifully
illustrated by tha simile of the dancing-girl to which we
referred before, but who is here represented not only as
intent on pleasing and beguiling Purusha, but as trying
herself to open his eyes and make him free from her charms
and fetters. We thus get a new application of the simile
mentioned before.
Prakrit!'* Unselfishness.
We read in the Karikiis 59-62 : 4 As a dancer having
exhibited herself on the stage ceases to dance, so does
Nature (Prakr/ti) cease, when she has made herself mani-
fest to Purusha.
fo. In many ways Prakr^ti serves Purusha, who yet
does nothing for her in return ; she is noble minded and
cares only for the welfare of him who is so ungrateful
to her.
61. There is nothing more modest, I think, than Prakriti,
who does not expose herself again to the gaze of Purusha
after she knows that she has been gazed at.
62. No Purusha- is therefore really chained, nor does he
become free, or wander ; Prakrit! alone, dependent as she
is on different Purushas, wanders from birth to birth, is
bound, and is freed/
In fact it would "seem that Prakriti, in enchanting or
binding Purusha, has no o'bject in view except that Purusha
3OO INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
should in the end perceive his fetters, and by discrimination
become free from them (Karika 59).
Here is indeed the Gordian knot of the whole Sa?)ikhya-
philosophy. We believe for a time in our own physical
nature and in the nature by which we are surrounded, and
so long as we do this, we suffer. We are exposed to all
kinds of pain, till our eyes are opened and we learn that
it is Prak?*iti that sees and acts, that kills and is killed,
that suffers, while we imagine that we ourselves do and
suffer all this. As soon as this insight has been gained, as
soon as Purusha has distinguished between himself and what
is not himself, liberation is achieved at once, and the dance
of life is ended for ever, at least so far as the liberated Self
is concerned. Until that final liberation has been accom-
plished and everything like body has been completely re-
moved, transmigration continues, and the Purusha is sup-
posed to be clothed in what is called the Linga-sarira, or
subtle body. Whatever we may think of the truth of such
a system we cannot help admiring its consistency through-
out, and its boldness and heroism in cutting the GOrdian
knot.
Gross and Subtle Body.
The idea of a subtle body by the side of our gross body
is very natural ; and we know that among the Greeks also
Pythagoras claimed a subtle ethereal clothing for the soul
apart from its grosser clothing when united with the body.
But the exact nature of that subtle body and its relation to
the grosser body is by no means as clear as we could wish
it to be.
Both Samkhyas and Vedantists agreed in admitting the
necessity of a subtle body in order to make the process of
migration after death intclligible.A In the Vedanta the
name of that body, or vehicle, or Aoraya for the journey
of the soul from existence to existence is Sftkshma-garira,
the subtle body. The Vedantists look upon this thin and
transparent vehicle of the soul as a seminal or potential
(Vi#a or $akti) body, which at death leaves the coarse
material body, without being injured itself. This subtle
body arises, according to the Vedanta, from the so-called
Upadhis (conditions), and consists of the senses of the body
GROSS AND SUBTLE BODY. 3OI
(Dehendriyas), both perceptive (Buddhlndriyas) and active
(Karmendriyas), and of Manas (mind), of Buddhi (intellect),
Vedaiia (sensation), implying beyond icself the vishayas,
objects required for sensation and presupposed already by
Manas. Its physical life is dependent on the Mukhya
Pra/fta, the vital spirit, and on the five Pra?ias, the special-
ised spirits. Its Indriyas or senses are not to be taken as
the external organs of sense, such as ears, eyes, &c., but as
their functions only (Vritti). This subtle and invisible body
or Sukshma-sarira remains, according to the Vedanta, till
true knowledge arises, and the individual soul recovers its .
true being in Brahman. The Vedantists are, however, by
no means consistent in their views on these two bodies, the
subtle and the coarse body (Sukshmam and Sthulam $ari-
ram), or on the process by which the one affects or controls
the other. At the final dissolution of the coarse body we
are told that the Indriyas are absorbed in the Manas, the
Manas in the Mukhya Pra/na, this in the Giva, the indivi-
dual, and this in the subtle body ; but neithei the Upani-
shads nor the Vedanta-Sutras are always quite consistent
and clear in their views on the subject, and it seems to me
useless to attempt to reduce their various guesses to one
uniform theory.
In the Samkhya-philosophy this Sukshma-sarira appears
as Linga-sarira, or the sign-body. The Sthula-sarira or
coarse material body consists, according to some Samkhya
teachers, of the five or four coarse elements (Bhutas), ac-
cording to others of the element of the earth only, and is
made up of six coverings, hair, blood, flesh, sinews, bones
and marrow. The subtle or inner body, sometimes called
the vehicle, or the Ativahika-sarira, is formed of eighteen
elements1, of (i) Buddhi, (2) Ahamkara, (3) Manas, (4-8)
the five Tanmatras or Sukshma-bhutas. and (9-18) the ten
senses. This body is of course invisible, but without it the
coarse body would be useless. It forms what we should
call our personality, and causes the difference in the char-
1 Karika 40, and Suwkhya-Sutras III, 9. Why tho Linga-sarira should
be said to consist of seventeen and one (Saptadasaikam) elements, is
difficult to say, unless Eka is taken for the Purusha who, for the time
being, identifies himself with the subtle body.
3O2 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
acters of individuals, being itself what it has been made to
be by former works. All fitness for reward and punish-
ment attaches to it, not to the Purushas who are all alike
and unchanging, and it likewise determines by means of
its acquired dispositions the gross bodies into which it has
to enter from life to life, till final freedom is obtained by
the Purusha : and not only the gross body, but the subtle
body also is reabsorbed in Prak?**ti.
The Atheism of Kapila.
We have still to say a few words about the charge of
atheism brought against the Samkhyas. It seems certainly
strange that at this early time and surrounde^ as he no
doubt was by sacrifices and hymns addressed to the in-
numerable Vedic Devas, nothing should have been said by
Kapila either for or against these beings. Most lively at
his time and before his time, the different Devas of the
popular religion had already been eclipsed in the minds
of thoughtful people by one Deity, whether Prapapati,
Visvakarman, or Brahman. Both Pra^apati and Brahma
are mentioned in the Tattva saniltsia-Dhashya. But even
such a supreme Deva or Adhideva is never asserted or
denied by Kapila. There is a place in his system for any
number of subordinate Devas, but there is none for God,
whether as the creator or as the ruler of all things." There
is no direct denial of such a being, no out-spoken atheism
in that sense, but there is simply no place left for him in
tho system of the world, as elaborated by the old philo-
sopher. He had, in fact, put nearly everything that be-
longed to God into Prakriti, only that this Prakrit! is taken
as purely objective, and as working without a conscious
purpose, unless when looked at by Purusha, and then
working, as we are told, for his benefit only.
This has sometimes boon illustrated by what must have
been a very old fable, viz. that of a cripple who could not
walk, meeting another cripple who could not see. As they
could not live by themselves, they lived together, the lame
one mounting on the shoulders of the blind one. Prakr/ti,
we are told, was the blind, Pvmisha the hune traveller.
We must remember, however, thftt Prakr/ti, though blind.
THE ATHEISM OF KAPILA. 303
is always conceived as real, becau.se the Samkhya-philosophy
looks upon everything that is, as proceeding out of some-
thing that is real (Satkaryavada). And here we see again,
the fundamental difference between the Samkhya and the
other philosophies, as Vafcaspati-Misra has pointed out in
his commentary on the Samkhya-karikA 9. The Buddhist
takes the real world as the result of nothing, the Vedantist
takes the unreal world as proceeding from something real,
Naiy&yika and Vaiseshika derive what does not yet exist
from what does exist, while the Samkhyas derive what is
from what is 1.
If it be asked how the unconscious Prakr?'ti began to ,
work and attract the attention of Purusha, Kapila has an
answer ready. The Gu/ias, he says, are first in a state of
equipoise, but as soon as one of the three preponderates,
there is tension, and Prakriti enters on the course of her
unceasing labours, beginning with the emanation of Buddhi,
and ending with the last of the twenty-four Tattvas.
There is this diifereuee also between the atheism of
Kapiia and that of other atheistic systems of philosophy,
that Kapila nowhere puts himself into a hostile attitude
towards the Divine idea. He nowhere denies distinctly the
existence even of the purely mythological gods, such as
Indra, which is strange indeed ; nor does he enter on any
arguments to disprove the existence of one only God. He
simply says — and in that respect he does not differ much
from Kant — that there are no logical proofs to establish
that existence, but neither does he offer any such proofs
for denying it. Wo know that Kant, honest thinker as he
was, rejected all the logical proofs of the existence of Deity
as insufficient, and based the arguments for his belief in
God on purely ethical grounds. .Though we have no right
to assume anything of the kind with regard to Kapila,
when brought face to face with this great religious and
moral problem, the existence of a supreme God, we ought
to mark his impartiality and the entire absence, in the
whole of his philosophy, of anything like animus against
a belief in God. The Devas he could hardly have seriously
1 Uarbe. Sawkhya-PbilosopJiie, p 202.
304 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
believed in, we should say, and yet he spares them and
allows them to exist, possibly with the reservation that
people, in worshipping them, were unconsciously approach5
ing the true Purusha. We should not forget that with
many people atheism meant, and means, a denial of Devas
rather than the denial of the one, only God, the First
Cause of the world. This whole question, however, will
be better discussed when we reach the Yoga-philosophy
and have to Examine the arguments produced by Pata%ali
against Kapila, and in support of the admission of a Su-
preme Being, generally called fsvara, the Lord,
Immorality of the Samkliya.
It has also been said that Kapila's system is not only
without a God, but likewise without any morality. But
though it is quite true that, according to Kaj ila, Purusha
in his perfect state is non-moral, neither merit nor demerit,
virtue nor vice, existing any longer for him, he is certainly
not allowed to be immoral. The Samkhya, like the Vcdanta
and other systems of Indian philosophy, implies strong
moral sentiment in the belief in Karman (deed) and trans-
migration. Kapila also holds that deeds, when once done,
can never cease, except at the time of Moksha, but produce
effect after effect, both in this life and in the lives to come.
This is one of the unalterable convictions in the Hindu
mind. There is, besides the admission of virtue and vice,
the dispraise of passion and the praise of tlispassion. These
are represented as forms of Buddhi, as Rupas or Bhavas,
forms or states, inhering in Buddhi. and therefore following
the Linga-sarira from birth to birth. Nay, it is distinctly
added that going upward is due to virtue, going downward
to vice, so that virtue, as a preliminary, is really indis-
pensable to final liberation. It may be true that in this
way morality is reduced to mere calculation of consequences,
but even such a calculation, which is only another name
for reasoning, would serve as a strong incentive to morality.
Anyhow there is no ground for saying that Kapila's system
ignores ordinary morality, still less that it encourages
vice.
SAJI/KHYA PARABLES. 365
S&mkhya Parables.
There is one more feature of the Samkhya that deserves
to be mentioned, because it is not found in the other Indian
philosophies, but may be supposed to have suggested to
the Buddhists their method of teaching by parables.
A whole chapter of the Sutras, the fourth, is assigned to
a collection of stories, each of which is meant to illustrate
some doctrine of Kapila's. Some are very much to the
point, and they can be appealed to by one word, so as to
recall the whole lesson which they were meant to teach.
The first is meant to illustrate the complete change that
comes over a man when he has been taught his true nature
by means of the Samkhya. * As in the case of the. son of
a king/ The story which follows is that a young prince
who was born under an unlucky star, was taken out of his
capital and brought up by a $abara, a kind of wild man
of the woods. When he grew up he naturally thought
that he himself was a /Sabara, and lived accordingly. But
a minister, who had found out that the prince was alive,
went to him secretly and told him that he was the son of
the king, and not a /Sabara. At once the prince gave up
the idea that he was a savage, believed that he was a
prince, and assumed a truly royal bearing. In the same
manner ar man who has been told his true character by his
teacher, surrenders the idea that he is a material and mortal
Ueing, and recovers his true nature, saying ' As a son of
Brahman I am nothing but Brahman, and not a being
different from him in this phenomenal world.'
The commentator adds an extract from the Garuo?a-
Purlbia which must have been borrowed from a Samkhya
source : —
' As everything that is made of gold is known as gold, if
even from one small piece of gold one has learnt to know
what gold is, in the same way from knowing God the whole
world becomes known,
As a Brahman possessed by an evil spirit, imagines that
he is a $ftdra, but, when the possession is over, 'knows
that he is a Br&hman, thus the soul, pqssessed by M&ya,
imagines that it is the body, but after Maya has come to
20 ~*
306 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
an end, it knows its own true being again, and says, I am
a Brahman.'
The seventh illustration is ' like a cut-off hand/ and is
meant to teach that, as no one takes his hand again after
it has once been cut off. no one should identify himself with
anything objective, after having once surrendered the illu-
sion of the objective. The sixteenth, to which I called
attention many years ago as connected with old Aryan
folklore, is meant to teach that even an accidental negli-
gence may be fatal to our reaching the highest goal, as in
the case of the ' frog- wife/
The story is that of a king who, while hunting, had seen
a beautiful girl in a forest. She became his wife on condi-
tion that he should never let her see water. He gave the
promise, but once when the queen, tired after playing,
asked him for some water, he forgot his promise, and
brought her some, whereupon the daughter of the frog-
king became a frog (Bheki), and disappeared in the lake.
Neither. nets nor anything else was of any avail for bringing
her back, the king had lost her for ever. Thus true know-
ledge also will disappear by one act of negligence, and will
never return.
This system of teaching by parables was very popular
with the Buddhists, arid it is just possible that the first
impulse may have come from the followers of Kapila, who
are so often called Krypto-buddhists or Pra/cAAamia-
Bauddhas.
I have called attention already to the fact that these
illustrative parables, though they do not occur in the
Karikas and in the Tattva-samasa, must have existed al,T
the time in the Parampara of the Brahmans, because they
appear in the modern Sutras, tha.t is in the sixteenth
century. Like the Sfttras referring to these stories, other
Sfttras also may occur in our modern collection of Samkhya-
Sutras, which existed for centuries, as handed down by
tradition, but were omitted in the Karikas and even in the
Tattva-samasa.
CHAPTER VII.
Yoga and S&mkhya.
THE relation of the Yo .a to the Sawkhya-philosophy is
not easy to determine, bin the Bhagavad-gita V, 4, goes so
far as to say that children only, not learned people, distin-
guish between Samkhya and Yoga at all, as it were between
faith (knowledge) and works. We find the Samkhya and
Yoga represented, each in its own Sutras, which are Ascribed
to different authors, Kapila and Pata//$ali J, and they are
spoken of in the dual as the two old systems (Mahabh. XII,
104, 67) ; but we also find a philosophy called Sawkbya-
yoga (Svetasv. Up. II, 13), and this not as a Dvandva, as it
were, Samkhya and Yoga, but as cne philosophy, as a
neuter sing., representing Yoga and Samkhya together as
one, or possibly as Yoga belonging to the Samkhya. Thus
we read again in the Bhagavad-gita V, 5, that he who
understands Samkhya and Yoga to be one, understands
aright. Yoga, in the sense of ascetic practices and medita-
tions, may 110 doubt have existed in India in very ancient
times. It is called Puratana (old), (B. G. IV, 3), and tliis is
probably what the author of the Bhagavad-gita (IV, i),
meant, when he made the Bhagavat say to Arc/una: —
' I declared this imperishable Yoga to Vivas vat, Vivasvat
told it to Maim, Manu to Ikshvaku. Thus royal sages
came to know it, having received it through tradition; but
this Yoga was lost here by long lapse of time/
A similar oral tradition descending from Pra^apati to
Manu, and from Maim to the people (to Ikshvf.ku, accord -
1 The identification of these two names with the name of one person
Kapya Pataftfc&la, who is mentioned in the Satapatba-briVlimana, once
proposed by Professor Weber, has probably long been given up by >r»n.
See also Garbe, S&mkhya- Philosophic, p. 26.
X 2
308 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
ing to $awkara) is mentioned already in the -KMndogya
Upanishad (III, u ; VIII, 15).
It is much the same with the other philosophies, and w$
are left in doubt a? to whether the three couples, Samkhya
and Yoga, Nyaya and Vaiseshika, nay even Pftrva- and
Uttara-Mima?nsa, were amalgamations of systems which
had originally an independent existence, or whether they
were differentiations of former systems. Samkhya and
Yoga might easily have formed one comprehensive system,
because their divergence with regard to the existence of an
Isvara, or Lord, was not so essential a point to them as it
seems to us. Those who wanted an Isvara might have him
as a first and super- eminent Purusha ; while those who had
gone beyond this want, need not have quarrelled with
those w«ho still felt it. The Nyaya and Vaiseshika show
clear traces of a common origin ; while the two Miinamsas,
which in character are more remote from one another than
the other systems, seem to sanction, by their names at least,
the suspicion of their former unity. But the deplorable
scarcity of any historical documents does not enable us
to go beyond mere conjectures ; and though the names of
Kapila, Vyasa, and Gotama may seenr to have an older air
than those of Pata>7<7ali, Craimini, and Kanada, \ve must
not in such matters allow ourselves to be guided by mere
impressions. The often-cited passage from the Vedanta-
Siitras II, i, 3, Etena Yoga/* pratyuktafc, 'By this the Yoga
is refuted/ proves of coiirse no more than the existence of
a Yoo-a-philosophy at the time of BadarayaTia ; it cannot be
used to prove the existence of the Yoga-Sfttras, such as we
pusses them, as previous to the composition of the Vedanta-
Sutras.
SAtfaninffs of the word Toga.
In the Bhagavad-gita Yoga is defined as S'amatva, equa-
bility (II, 48 v. It has been repeated again and again that
Yoga, I: win Yu#, to join, meant 'originally joining the deity,
or union with it. Even native authors occasionally tavour
that view. A moment's consideration, however, would
have shown that such an idea could never have entered the
mind of a Sarokhya, for the simple reason that there was
YOGA, NOT UNION, BUT DISUNION, 309
nothing for him that he could have wished to join. Even
the Vedantist does not really join Brahman, though this is
j, very common misconception; nay, a movement of the
soul towards Brahman is distinctly guarded against as
impossible. The soul is always Brahman, even though it
does not know it, and it only requires the removal of
ignorance for the soul to recover its Brahmahood, or to*
become what it always has been. Yu<7, from meaning to
join, came, by means of a very old metaphor, to mean to
join oneself to something, to harness oneself for some work.
Thus Yu# assumed the sense of preparing for hard work,
whether preparing others or getting ready oneself.1 And
as people with us use the expression to go into harness, i.e.
to prepare for work, or to buckle-to, jL e. to get ready for
hard work, Yugr, particularly in the Atrnanepada, came to
mean to exert oneself. Possibly the German Angespannt
and Anspannung may have been suggested by the same
metaphor, though the usual explanation is that it was
suggested by a metaphor taken from the stretching of the
bow. In Sanskrit ^this Yu# is often used with such words
as Manas, jfiTittam, Atman, &c., in the sense of concentrating
or exerting one's mind ; and it is in this sense only that our
word Yoga could have sprung from it, meaning, a*? the
Yoga-Sutras tell us at the very beginning, I, 2, the effort
of restraining the activities or distractions of our thoughts
(Jfitta-v?*itti-nirodha), or the effort of concentrating our
thoughts on a definite object.
Yoga, not Union, but Disunion.
A false interpretation of the term Yoga as union has led
to a total misrepresentation of Pata«</ali's philosophy.
Rajendralal Mitra, p. 308, was therefore quite right when
he wrote : * Professor Weber, in his History of Indian
Literature (pp. 238-9), has entirely misrepresented the case-
He says, * One very peculiar side of the Yoga doctrine —
and one which was more and more developed as time went
on— is the Yoga practice, that is, the outward means, such
as penances, mortifications, and the like, whereby this
absorption into the supreme Godhead is sought to be
310 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
attained." " The idea of absorption," he continues rightly,
'•into the supreme Godhead forms no part of the Yoga
theory." " Patay7(/ali, like Kapila," he adds, " rests satisfied
with the isolation of the soul, and does not pry into the
how and where the soul abides after separation."' But
when he charges the professor with not having read the
Yoga he goes a little too far, and he ought to have known,
from his own experience, that it is small blame to a man
who writes a complete history of Indian literature, if he
has not read every book on which he has to pronounce an
opinion. Even the best historian of German literature can
hardly have read every German author of any eminence,
much less can the first hivstorian of Sanskrit literature.
Rajendralal Mitra, however, is quite right so far that
Yoga, in the philosophy of Pataugrali and Kapila, did not
mean union with God. or anything but effort (Udyoga, not
Sar/iyoga), pulling oneself together, exertion, concentration.
Yoga might mean union, but the proper term would have
been Samyoga. Thus we read in the Bhagavad-gita II,
5° :-
Buddhiyukto grahatiha ubhe sukritadushkrite,
Tasmad yogaya yiK/yasva, yogaA karmasu kau.salam.
'He who is devoted to knowledge leaves behind loth good
and evil deeds ; therefore devote yourself to Yoga, Yoga is
success in (all) actions/
That native scholars were well aware of the double
meaning of Yoga, we may see from a verse in the beginning
of Bhogradeva's commentary on the Yoga-Sutras, where he
states that, with av true Yogin, Yoga, joining, means really
Viyoga, separation, or Viveka, discrimination between
Purusha arid PrakHti, subject and object, self and nature,
such as it is taught in the Samkhya: Pumprakrityor
viyogo*pi yoga ityudito yaya, 'By which (teaching of
Pata/7#ali) Yoga (union) is said to be Viyoga (separation) of
Purusha and Prakriii.'
Toga us Viveka.
We saw that this Viyoga or Viveka was indeed the
highest point to which the whole of the Samkhya* philosophy
YOGA AS VIVEKA. 311
leads up. But granted that this discrimination, this sub-
duing and drawing away of the Self from all that is not
Self, is the highest object of philosophy, how is it to be
reached, and even when reached, how is it to be maintained ?
By knowledge chiefly, would be the answer of Kapila (by
6r>?anayoga) ; by ascetic exercises delivering the Self from
the fetters of the body arid the bodily senses, (by Kar;
mayoga) adds Pata/?<?ali. Pata/?(/ali by no means ignores
the (?>7anayoga of Kapila. On the contrary, he presup-
poses it; he only adds, as a useful support, a number of
exercises, bodily as well as mental, by which the senses
should be kept in subjection so as not to interfere again
with the concentration of all thoughts on the Self or the
Purusha 1. • In that sense he tells us in the second Sutra that
Yoga is the effort of restraining the activity or distractions
of our thoughts. Before we begin to scoff at the Yoga and
its minute treatment of postures, breathings, arid other
means of mental concentration, we ought first of all to try
to understand their original intention. Everything can
become absurd by exaggeration, and this has been, no doubt,
the case with the self-imposed discipline and tortures of the
Yogins. But originally their object seems to have been
no other than to counteract the distractions of the senses.
We all consider the closing of the eyelids and the stopping
of the ^ears against disturbing noises useful for serious
meditation. This was the simple beginning of Yoga, and
in that sense it was meant to be a useful addition to the
Samkhya, because even a convinced Samkhya philosopher
who had obtained 6V7anayoga or knowledge-yoga would
inevitably suffer from the disturbances caused by external
circumstances and the continual inroads of the outer world
upon him, i.e. upon his Manas, unless strengthened to
resist by Karmayoga or work -yoga the ever present enemy
of his peace of mind. More minute directions as to how
this desired concentration and abstraction could be achieved
and maintained, might at first have been quite harmless,
1 I prefer, even in the Snmkhya-philosophy, to render Purusha by
Self rather than by man, because in English rnan cannot be used in the
sense of simply subject or* soul. Besidkes, Atwan, Self, is often used by
Palawan" himself for Purusha, cf. Yoga-Sutras III, ai ; II, 41.
312 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
but if carried too. far they would inevitably produce those
torturing exercises which seemed to Buddha, as they do to
most people, so utterly foolish and useless. But if we our*
selves must admit that our senses and all that they imply
are real obstacles to quiet meditation, the attempts to reduce
these sensuous affections to some kind of quietude or equa-
bility (Samatva) need not surprise us, nor need we be
altogether incredulous as to the marvellous results obtained
by means of ascetic exercises by Yogins in India, as little
as we should treat the visions of St. Francis or St. Teresa
as downright impositions. The real relation of the soul
to the body and of the senses to the soul is still as great
a mystery to us as it was to the ancient Yogins of India,
and their experiences, if only honestly related, deserve
certainly the same careful attention as the stigmata of
Roman Catholic saints. They may be or they may not
be true, but there is no reason why they should be treated
as a priori untrue. From this point of view it seems to
me that the Yoga-philosophy deserves some attention on
the part of philosophers, more particularly of the physical
school 6f psychologists, and I did not feel justified there-
fore in passing over this system altogether, though it
may be quite true that, after we have once understood the
position of the Samkhya-philosophy towards the great
problem of the world, we shall not glean many new meta-
physical or psychological ideas from a study of the Yoga.
We must never forget that, although our Samkhya-Sfttras
are very modern, the Samkhya as such, is not, and is
always presupposed >by the Yoga. It has its roots in a soil
carefully prepared by centuries of philosophical cultivation,
and has but little in common with the orgiastic ecstasies
which we see among savage tribes of the present day. The
Hindus also, before they became civilised and philosophers,
may or may not have passed through such a phase. But
how little of true similarity there really exists between the
Yoga and Tapas of the Hindus, and the sweating processes
of the American Indians in their steam-booths, may easily
be seen from the excellent Reports of the Bureau of Eth-
nology, by J. W. Powell, 1892-3, p. 1 17 seq.; p. 823 seq., to
mention no other .and more painful reports.
PATA^C?ALI, VYASA. 313
Before we enter upon an examination of the peculiar
teaching of the Yoga-philosophy, a few words with refer-
ence to the sources on which we have to depend for our
information may be useful.
Pata%ali, Vyasa.
The Stitras of the Yoga-philosophy are ascribed to Pata/7-
grali, who is also called Phanin or &esha, th /Hi vine serpent.
He may have been the author or the representative of the
Yoga-philosophy without being necessarily the author of
the Sfrtras. His date is of course uncertain, though some
scholars have, with great assurance, assigned him to thjs
second century B. c. It may be so, but we should say no
more. Even the commonly received identification of the
philosopher Pataw^ali with Pata/7(/ali, the grammarian and
author of the Mahabhashya, should be treated as yet as
a hypothesis only. We know too little about the history
of Sanskrit proper names to be able to say whether the
same Jiame implies the same person. That is not the case
in any other country, and can hardly be true in India
considering how freely the names of the gods or of great
Rishis were taken, and are still taken, as proper names.
It has actually been asserted that Vyasa, the author of a
late commentary on Pata%ali's Yoga-Sfttras, is the same
person as Vy£sa, the collector of the Vedas, the reputed
author of the Mah&bharata and of the Vedanta-Sfttras.
But there are ever so many Vyasas living even now, and
no solid argument could possibly be derived from the mere
recurrence of such a name. There are works ascribed to
Hirawyagarbha, Harihara, Vishnu, &c.; then why not to
Pata/7(/ali ? It is of course as impossible to prove that Pataw-
</ali the philosopher and Pata/^ali the grammarian were
not the same person, as to prove that they were ; but if
style of language and style of thought are any safe guides
in such matters, we ought certainly to hesitate, and should
do so in any other literature, before taking the grammarian
and the philosopher Pata//<yali as one and the same person.
It would no doubt be a great help if we could transfer the
date of the grammarian, the second century B.C., to the
314 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
author of our Yoga-Siltras, but on that point also it seems
to me better to wait till we get some more tangible proof.
In the present state of knowledge, or rather ignorance, of
all dates to be assigned to the philosophical Sutras, it is the
duty of every scholar to abstain from premature assertions
which only encumber and obstruct the way to further dis-
coveries.
Second Century B.C.
The second century would certainly be most welcome as
a date for any of our extant philosophical Sutras, but
that is no excuse for saying that the Yoga-philosophy was
reduced to the form of Sutras in that century, because the
grammarian Patatfgali has been referred to that date.
Besides, even the date assigned to thef grammarian Patam/ali
is a constructive date only, and should not for the present
be considered as more than a working hypothesis. The
fact that these Yoga-Sutras do not enter on any controversy
might certainly seem to speak in favour of their being
anterior to the other Sutras ; but we saw already why we
could no more build any chronological conclusions on this
than we should think of proving the anteriority of our
Samkhya-Sutras by the attacks on its atheistical doctrines
which occur in the Sutras of the other philosophical systems.
I think we must be satisfied with the broad fact that
Buddha was later than the classical Upanishads, and that
our philosophical Sutras are later than Buddha, because
they evidently refer to his doctrines, though not to his
name. As to popular tradition, it is no doubt of little
value, particularly in India ; still I doubt whether tradition
could have gone so completely wrong as to prophesy in the
Sankshepa-£amkara-Vi</aya l and elsewhere that ffaimini,
Vyasa, Pata/tyali, and £>amkara would appear on earth to
uproot all heresies, if they had lived before the great heresy
of Buddha. Pata/7r/ali is said to have been a portion of
Sankarshawa or Ananta, the hooded serpent £esha, encir-
cling the world, and it may be for the same reason 'that
he is sometimes called PhaTiin (Pha?*ibhartri). This is the
kind of useless information which tradition gives us.
1 Yoga Aphorisms, p. Ixvi.
CHRONOLOGY OF THOUGHT. 315
Chronology of Thought.
In India we must learn to be satisfied with the little we
know, not of the chronology of years, but of the chronology
of thought; and taking the Yoga, in its systematic form,
i.e. in the Pata^ali-Sutras, as post-Buddhistic, we can
best understand the prominence which it gives both to th£
exercises which are to help toward overcoming the dis-
tracting influences of the outer world, and to the arguments
in support of the existence of an Isvara or Divine Lord.
This marked opposition became intelligible and necessary
as directed against Kapila as well as against Buddha ; and
in reading the Yoga-Sutras it is often difficult to tf&y
whether the author had his eye on the one or the other.
If we took away these two characteristic features of the
Yoga, the wish to establish the existence of an Isvara
against all coiners, and to teach the means of restraining
the affections and passions of the soul, as a preparation for
true 'knowledge, such as taught by the Sa?nkhya-philosophy,
littl'3 'Would seem to remain that is peculiar to Patafigrali.
But though the Sutras are post-Buddhistic, there can be
no doubt that not only the general outlines of the Samkhya,
but likewise all that belongs to the Karmayoga or work-
yoga was "known before the rise of Buddhism. Thus, if
we turn to the Mahabharata, we find that the twenty-four
principia, with Purusha as the twenty-fifth, are often
mentioned, though arranged and described in different
ways. Then we read again (Anugita XXV) : ' That which
sageis by their understanding meditate upon, which is void
of smell, of taste, of colour, touch or sound, that is called
Pradlhana (Prakriti). That Pradhaiia is unperceived; a
development of this unperceived power is the Mahat ; and
a development of the Pradhana (when it has) become
Mahat, is Ahawkara (egoism). From Ahamkara is pro-
duced the development, namely, the great elements, and
from the elements respectively, the objects of sense are
staked to be a development/
As to the Yoga-practices or tortures we know that,
after practising the most severe Tapas for a time, Buddha
himself declared against it, and rather moderated than
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
encouraged the extravagant exercises of Brahmanic as-
cetics. His own experience at the beginning of his career
had convinced him of their uselessriess, nay, of their
danger. But a moderately ascetic life, a kind of via
media, remained throughout the ideal of Buddhism, and
we can well understand that the Brahmans, in trying to
hold their own against the Buddhists, should have tried ta
place before the people an even more perfect system of
asceticism. And, lest it should be supposed that the
Sa?nkhya-philosophy, which was considered as orthodox
or Vedic, had given its sanction to Buddha's denial of an
Atman and Brahman, which was far more serious than the
denial of an Isvara, Lord, it would have seemed all the
more necessary to protest decidedly .against such denial,
and thus to satisfy the ingrained theistic tendencies of
the people at large, by showing that the Samkhya, by
admitting Purusha, admitted a belief in something tran-
scendent, and did by no means, according to Pata/J#ali
at least, condemn a belief even in an Isvara, or Lord.
In that sense it might truly be said that the Yog*a-
philosophy would have been timely and opportune, if it
came more boldly forward, after the rise of Buddhism,
not so much as a new system of thought, but as a re-
invigorated and determined assertion of ancient S&mkhya
doctrines, which for a time had beei), thrown Into the
shade by the Buddhist apostasy. Iry this way it Would
become intelligible that Buddhism, though sprung from
a soil saturated with S&mkhya ideas, should have been
anterior to that new and systematic development of
Sarakhya-philosophy, which we know in the Sfttras of
Kapila or in the itarikas or even in the Tattva-sarn«Lsa ;
that in fact, in its elements, the Sa?nkhya should be as
decidedly pre-Buddhistic as in its final systematic foirm
it was post-Buddhistic. That the existence side by side
of two such systems as thoso of Kapila and Buddha, tihe
one d'eemed orthodox, the other unorthodox, gave matter
for reflection to the people in India we see best by a
well-known verse which I quoted many years ago in
my History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (p. 102): 'If
Bu.ddha knew the law and Kapila not, what is truth?
THE YOGA-PHILOSOPHY. 317
If both were omniscient, how could there be difference of
opinion between the two ? '
The Yoga-Philosophy.
The Yoga-Siitras, or the Yoganusasaria *, called also by
the same name which was giv^n to the Sa/mkhya-SiHras,
viz. Sa/mkhya-prava/cana, both being considered as ex-
positions of the old Samkhya, may have been contained
originally in some such text-book as the Tattva-samasa.
The Sutras were published and translated by Ballantyne,
1853, a translation continued by Govindadeva-.sastrin in
the Pandit, vol. Ill, Nos. 28-68. A more useful edition,
but not always quite correct translation, was given by
Rajendralal Mitra in the Bibliotheca Indiea. 1883, 'Yoga
Aphorisms of Pata;7(/ali, with the commentary of Bho^a
R%a.' Vi<7/?ana-Bhikshu. whose commentary on Kapila's
Samkhya- Sutras was mentioned before 2, and who is chiefly
1 It is not much of an argument, but it may deserve to be mentioned,
that th* title given by Pata%ali to the Yoga-Sutras, Atha Yoganusasanam,
'Now begins tbe teaching of the Yoga/ and not Atha Yogat/igwasa, reminds
us of the title which the grammarian P«ta%ali gives to his Mahabhashya,
Atha Sabdanusasanam, *Now begins the teaching of Words or of tho
Word.' This title does not belong to Panini's Sutras, but to the Maha-
bhashya; and it is curious that such a compound as Sabdanusasariam
would really oft'end against one of Panini's rules (II, 2, 14). According
to Panini there ought to be no such compound, and though he does not
give us the reason why he objects to this and other such-iike compounds,
we can easily see that Sanskrit did not sanction compounds which
might be ambiguous, considering that Word-teaching might be taken
in the sense of teaching coming from words as well as teaching having
words for its object. It is true that this apparent irregularity might
be removed by a reference to another rule of Piwini (II, 3, 66), yet it is
curious that the same, if only apparent, irregularity should occur both
in the Mahabhashya and in the Yoga-Sutras, both being ascribed to
Pata?1grali.
a Other works ascribed to the same author are : —
The Brahma-mimawsa-bhashya, called Vigrnananm'ta.
The Sawkhya-karika-bhashya, ascribed to him, but really composed
by Gandapada (see Ganganatha, p. 2).
The Yoga-varttika.
The Isvara-gita-bhashya, from the Kurrna -purawa.
The Prasnopanishad-aloka.
An explanation of Prasastnpada's commentary on the Vaisoshika-
Sutras, called Vaiseshika-varttika.
There are printed editions of the Sawkhya-prava&ana-bhashya, the
Yoga-varttika, and the Samkhya-sara.
31 8 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
known by his Yoga-v&rttika, is the author also of the
,Yoga-s£tra-samgraha, an abstract of the Yoga, which has
been edited and translated by Ganganatha Jha, Bombay
1894, and may be consulted with advantage by students
of philosophy. Colebrooke's essay on the Yoga, like all
his essays, is still most useful and trustworthy ; and there
are in German the excellent papers on the Sa?nkhya and
Yoga by Professor Garbe in Buhler's Grundriss. Garbe
speaks well of a dissertation by P. Markus, Die Yoga-
philosophic nach dem Rajamdrtanda dargesteilt, which,
however,, I have not been able to obtain.
Misconception of the Objects of Yoga.
It was almost impossible that the Yoga-philosophy, as
represented by European scholars, should not have suffered
from its close association with the Samkhya, properly so
called. All its metaphysical antecedents were there. Yoga
is indeed, as the Brahmans say, Samkhya, only modified,
particularly in one point, namely, in its attempt to develop
and systematise an ascetic discipline by which concentration
of thought could be attained, and by admitting devotion
to the Lord God as part of that discipline. Whether this
was done, as is generally supposed, from mere theological
diplomacy is a question we should find difficult tor answer,
considering how little we know of the personal character
of Patawgali or of the circumstances under which he
elaborated his theistic Samkhya-philosophy. There is an
entire absence o^ animosity on his part, such as our own
philosophers would certainly have displayed in accusing
another philosopher of atheism and in trying to amend his
system in a theistic direction. No doubt there must
always have been a majority in favour of a theistic
philosophy of the universe as against an atheistic, but
whether Patatf^ali may be fairly accused of having yielded
to the brutal force of numbers, and curried favour with
the many against the few is quite another question. It is
certainly extraordinary to see the perfect calmness with
which, with very few exceptions, Kapila's atheism is dis-
cussed, and how little there is of the ad populum advocacy
DEVOTION TO ISVARA, MISCONCEPTIONS. 319
in support of a belief in God and a personal God. Nor
does Kapila, like other atheistic philosophers, display any
animosity against the Divine idea and its defenders. He
criticises indeed the usual arguments by which theists
make and unmake their God, if they represent Him as the
creator and ruler of the world, and charge him at the same
time with cruelty, by making him responsible for the origin
of evil also. But all this is done by Kapila in a calm and
what one might almost call a businesslike manner ; and in
answering Kapila's arguments, Pata^ali also preserves the
same Samatva or even temper. He imputes no motives
to his antagonist, nor does ho anywhere defend himself
against any possible suspicion that in showing the neces-
sity of a personal God, an Lsvara, he was defending the
interests of the Brahman priesthood. After all, t&vara
was not even a popular name for God, or the name of any
special god, though it occurs as a name of Rudra, and in
later times was applied even to such gods as Vislmu and
$iva, after they had been divested of much of their old
mythological trappings.
Devotion to isvara, Misconceptions.
In this respect also we have something to learn from
Hindu philosophers. Considering the importance of the
subject, it is useful to see how little heat was expended on
it either by Kapila or by Pata/tyali. If we remember how
the two philosophies were in popular parlance distinguished
from each other as Samkhya with and Sa?7ikhya without
a Lord, we should have expected to see this question treated
in the most prominent place. Instead of which we find
Pata;?$ali, at the end of the? first chapter, after having
described the different practices by which a man may hope
to become free from all worldly fetters, mentioning simply
as one of many expedients, I, 23, * Devotion to the Lord/
or, as it is generally translated, ' devotion to God/ Devotion
or Pranidhana (lit. placing oneself forward and into) is
explained by Bhot/a as one of the forms of resignation, as
worship of Him, and as the surrender of all one's actions
to Him,, If a man, without wishing for any rewards con-
32O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
sisting in worldly enjoyments, makes over all his cares to
tsvara as the highest guide, that, we are told, is Pranidhana.
Pata/7r/ali then goes on, c As it has been said that SamadhL
or complete absorption can be obtained through devotion
to the Lord, the next that has to be explained in order, is
the nature of that Lord, the proof, the majesty, the name
of Him, the order of His worship, and the fruit thereof/
In I, 24 Pata/7qali goes on to say : ' Isvara, the Lord, is
a Purusha (Self) that has never been touched by sufferings,
actions, rewards, or consequent dispositions/ The commen-
tary adds : * Sufferings are such as Nescience, Avidya, &c. ;
actions are either enjoined, forbidden, or mixed ; rewards
are the ripened fruits of actions manifested in birth (genus,
caste) and life, while dispositions (Asaya, Arilage) are so-
called because they lie in the soil of the mind till the fruit
has ripened, they are instincts (Sa??>skara) or impressions
(Vasana). If the Lord is called a Purusha, that means that
He is different from all other Purushas (Selves), and if Hi*
is called Lord, that means that He is able by His work
alone to liberate the whole world. Such power is due to
the constant prevalence of goodness (a Gu?m) in Him, who
has no beginning, and this prevalence of goodness arises
from His eminent knowledge. But the two, knowledge
and power, are not dependent on each other, for they are
eternally abiding in the very substance of tsvafa. His
very relation to that goodness is without beginning, be-
cause the union of Prakriti and Purusha, that is, the
creation would, from a Yoga point of view, have been
impossible without the will of such an Lsvara. While the
ATitta or mind in ordinary Purushas or Selves undergoes,
while in the body, modifications tending towards happiness,
unhappiness, and delusion, and, if remaining without
blemish, good, and full of virtue, becomes conscious of
the incidence of the pictures mirrored on the mind, it
is not so with Isvara. His highest modification is of
goodness alone, and he remains steadfast in enjoyment
through eternal union with it. Therefore he alone is
Isvara, eminent above all other Purushas. Again, even for
one who has gained freedom, a return of sufferings, &c.,
is possible, and has to be guarded against by such means
WHAT IS ISVARA? 321
as are inculcated in the Yoga ; but he, the tsvara, as he is
always .such as he is, is not like a man who has gained
freedom, but he is by nature free. Nor should one say
that there may be many such Isvaras. Though there be
equality of Purushas, qud Purushas, yet as their aims are
different, such a view would be impossible. And though
there be a possibility of more or less, yet the most eminent
would always be the Isvara or the Lord, he alone having
reached the final goal of lordship/
The Pataw#ala-bhashya dwells very strongly on this
difference between the liberated soul and the Lord ; for
'the liberated or isolated souls/ it says, 'attain their
isolation by rending asunder the three bonds, whereas in
regard to Isvara there never was and never can be such
bondage. The emancipated implies bondage, but this can
never be predicated of the Lord/
We need not point out here the weak points of this
argument, and the purely relative character of the great-
ness and separateness claimed for th§ Isvara, as compared
with other Purushas, but it may be well to try to compare
our own ideas of God, when put into clear and simple
language, with the ideas here propounded. Pata/?#ali
seems to me to come very near to the Homoiousia of man
with God, though he does jnot go quite as far as the Ve-
d&ntin who claims for the Atmari perfect Homoousia with
Brahman. Eis Isvara may be primus inter pares, but as
one of the Purushas, he is but one among his peers/ He
j is a little more than a god, but he is certainly not what we
i itfean by God.
What is
As Kapila had declared that the existence of such a being
as tsvara did not admit of proof, Pata%ali proceeds in the
. next Sutra to offer what he calls his proofs, by saying :
, ' In Him the seed of the omniscient (or omniscience) attains
infinity/ It would be difficult to discover in this anything
like a proof or a tenable appeal to any Pram&Tia, without
the help of the commentary. But Bho#a explains that
what is meant here is that there are different degrees of
all excellences, such as omniscience, greatness, smallness,
y.
322 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
and other Aisvaryas, and that therefore there mi^st be for
all of them a point beyond which it is impossible to go.
This Niratiseya point, this non plus ultra of excellency
i§ what is claimed for Isvara or the Lord.
Though this could hardly be considered as a convincing
argument of the existence of a Being endowed with all such
transcendent excellences as are here postulated, it shows
at all events an honest intention on the part- of Pata/Tgali.
Pata%ali's argument reminds us to a certain extent of the
theistic argument of Cleanthes and Boethius. What he
means is that where there is a great and greater, there must
also be a greatest, and this is Lsvara, and that where there
is good and better, there must be best.
Nor does he flinch in trying to answer the questions
which follow. The question is supposed to have been
asked, how this Isvara, without any inducement, could have
caused that union and separation of himself and Prakr/ti
which, as we saw, is only another name for creation. The
answer is that the inducement was his love of beings,
arising from his mercifulness, his determination being to
save all living beings at the time of the Kalpapralayas and
Mahapralayas, the great destructions and reconstructions
of the world. This, of course, would not have been admitted
by Kapila.
Next Pata#</ali proceeds to explain the majestyof Isvara
by saying, in I, 26, —
' He is the superior (Guru) even of the former ones, being
himself not limited by time/
By the former ones are meant, as we are told, the ancients,
the first creators, such as Brahma and others, and by
, superior is meant instructor and guide, so that it would
seem difficult to assign a higher. / position to any divine
being than by placing him thus above Brahma and other
accepted builders of the world. Next follows his name.
I, 27 :—
1 His name is Pra?iava.'
PraTiava might etyrnologically mean breathing forth or
glory. It is assigned as a name to the sacred syllable Om,
possibly a relic of a time beyond our reach. It is said
to have been the name of Isvara from all eternity, just as
WHAT IS I&VAEA2 323
the name of father or son. This may be true, but it does
not satisfy us. However old the name PraTiava and the
syllable Om.may have been, they must have had a begin-
ning, but in spite of all the theories of the Brahmans, there
is not one in the least satisfactory to the scholar. Om is
their sacred syllable, which has to be repeated a hundred
or a thousand times in order to draw the mind away Irani
all disturbing impressions and to concentrate it on th^
Supreme Being. But why it is so we cannot tell. It may
be a mere imitation of the involuntary outbreathing of the
deep vowel o, stopped by the labial nasal, and then drawn
in ; or it may be the contraction of a pronominal stem
Avam, ' that/ corresponding to Ayam, 'this/ and it is cer-
tainly used in the sense of Yes, much as hoc illud ?was used
in French when contracted to GUI. But however that may
be, it is called Prawava, praise or breathing forth, and can-
not be explained any further etymologically. It is a name,
as Bho</a says, not made by anybody, and if it has any
historical or etymological justification, this is at all events
not known to us. Still we cannot go quite so far as
Rajendralal Mitra, who sees in it an Indianised form of the
Hebrew Amen I First of all, Amen does not mean God,
and how should such a word have reached India during
the BrahmaTia period ?
Pataw/ali continues by telling us in StHra I, 38, tfealt
repetition of the syllable Om and reflection on its meaning
are incumbent on the student of Yoga. And this, as Bho#a
adds, as a means to concentrate our thoughts, and to attain
to Samadhi, the chief end of the whole Yoga-philosophy.
In that sense he adds, I, 29 : —
* Thence also obtainment of inward-turned thought, and
absence of obstacles/
Inward-turned thought (Pratyak&etana) is explained as
a turning away of our senses from all outward objects,
and turning them back upon the mind. The obstacles to
'Samadhi are mentioned in the next Sfttra, I, 30, as
'Disease, languor, doubt, carelessness, idleness, worldliness,
error, not having a settled standpoint, and not keeping it ;
these are the obstacles causing unsteadiness of mind/
1,31. 'With them arise pain, distress, tremor of limbs,
324 'INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
and disturbance of the regular inbreathing and out-
breathing/
I, 32. 'To prevent all this, there is constant* fixing of th£
mind on one subject (Tattva)/
I? 33, 'And likewise from a reviving friendliness, pity,
complacency, and indifference towards objects of happiness,
unhappiness, virtue and vice, there arises serenity of mind.'
The commentator adds, 'If one sees happy people, one
should not envy them; if one sees unhappiness, one should
think how it could be removed ; if one sees virtuous people,
one should rejoice and not say, Are they really virtuous ?
if one sees vicious people, one should preserve indifference,
and show neither approval nor aversion. Thus does the
mind become serene and capable of Sam&dhi. But all these
are only outward helps towards fixing the mind on one
-subject, and of thus in time obtaining Samadhi.1
I have given this extract in order to show how subordinate
a position is occupied in Pata/ik/ali's mind by the devotion
to Isvara. It is but one of the many meSns for steadying
the mind, and thus realising that Viveka or discrimination
between the true man (Purusha) and the objective world
(Prakriti). This remains in the Toga as it was in the
S&mkhya, the &ummum bcrnum of mankind. I do not
think, therefore, that Rajendralal Mitra was right^when in
his abstract of the Yoga (p. lii) he represented tfiis belief
in one Supreme God as the first and most important tenet
of Patatf grsli'fl philosophy. 4 The leading tenets of the
Yogins,' he says, c are first, that there is a Supreme God-
head who is purely spiritual, or all soul, perfectly free from
afflictions, works, deserts, and desires. His symbol is Om,
and He rewards those who are ardently devoted to Him
by facilitating their attainment of liberation ; but He does
not directly grant it. Nor is He the father, creator, or
protector of the universe, with which He is absolutely
unconnected/
Rajendralal Mitra does not stand alone in this opinion,
and the very name of Sesvara-S&mkhya. theistic Samkhya,
given to the Yoga, would seem to speak in his favour.
But we have only to look at the Sfttras themselves to see
that originally this belief in a personal God was by no
WHAT IS LSVARA? 325
means looked upon as the most characteristic feature of
Pata/fyali's system.
Rajendralal Mitra is right, however, in stating the tenet,
< second in importance, to have been that there are countless
individual souls or Pui;ushas which animate living beings,
and are eternal. They are pure and immutable ; but by
their association jwith the universe they become indirectly
the experiences of joys and sorrows, and assume innumerable
embodied forms in the course of an ever-recurring metem-
psychosis.' .
The Isvara, with the Yogins, was originally no more than
one of the many souls, or rather Selves or Purushas, but
one that has never been associated with or implicated in
metempsychosis, supreme in every sense, yet of the same
kind as all other Purushas. The idea of other Purushas
obtaining union with him could therefore never have
entered Pata/tyali's head. According to him, the highest
object of the Yogin was freedom, aloneness, aloofness, or
self-centredness. As one of the useful means of obtaining
that freedom, or of quieting the mind previous to liberating
it altogether, devotion to the tsvara is mentioned, but again
as one only out of many means, and not even as the most
efficacious of all. In the popular atmosphere of India this
belief in one Supreme Being may have been a strong point
in favour of Pata;7^ali's system, but from a philosophical
point of view, Patatfgrali's so-called proofs of the existence
of God would hardly stand against any criticism. They
are mere Trdpepya, or side issues. We must remember that
Kapila had committed himself to no^more than that it is
impossible to prove the existence of Isvara, this Isvara not
being synonymous with God, in the highest sense of the word,
but restricted to a personal creator and ruler of the world.
Such a confession of an inability to prove the existence of
an Isvara does not amount to atheism, in the current sense
of that word, and thus only can we explain the fact that
Kapila himself was considered orthodox by friends and
foes. In the Vedanta-philosophy the question of the real
existence of a personal Isvara never arises, though we
know how saturated that philosophy is with a belief in the
existence of Brahman, the absolute Divine Essence of which
326 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
the active or personal tsvara or the Lord is but a passing
manifestation, presented by Brahma, masc., a mere phase
of Brahman, neuter. The Samkhya, in attempting tor
explain the universe, such as it is, both in its subjective
and objective character, has no need to call in the assistance
of a personal Isvara. What we mean by the objective
world is, according to Kapila, the work or outcome of Pra-
kriti, when animated by Purusha, not of Brahman. His
system is therefore without a creator or personal maker of
the world, but if we called it therefore atheistic, we should
have to apply the same name to Newton's system of the
world and Darwin's theory of evolution, though we know
that both Newton and Darwin were thoroughly religious
men. Darwin himself went so far as to maintain most
distinctly that his system of nature required a Creator who
breathed life into it in the beginning, and even those Dar-
winians who look upon this admission of Darwin's as a
mere weakness of the moment, would strongly object to
be called irreligious or atheists. Kapila might easily have
used the very words of Darwin, and this is very much
what Pata;1gali actually did in his Yoga-Sutras. His
supreme Purusha; afterwards raised into an Adi-Purusha,
or First Being, satisfied the human craving after a First
Cause, and, so far as I can see, it was this natural craving
rather than any vulgar wish to curry favour with the
orthodox party in India that led to Pata ng&li's partial
separation from .Kapila. We certainly need not suppose
that the recognition of Kapila's orthodoxy was a mere
contrivance of theological diplomacy on the part of the
Brahmans, and that these defenders of the faith were
satisfied with an insincere recognition of the supreme
authority of the-Veclas. I confess that with what we know
of the religious life of India and the character of the Brah-
mans at all times, it seems to. me very difficult to admit
the idea of such a compromise. Besides, Kapila appeals,
as we saw, to the Veda in good earnest, particularly when
it supports his own views, as in V, 12, when he wants to
prove ' that the world arises from primitive matter/ and
appeals to the Veda, that is, to such passages as /Svetas-
vatara Upanishad IV, 5, and Brihad. Ar. Up. I, 4, 7, that
KAPILAS REAL ARGUMENTS. 327
can be made to support his view. The two oldest repre-
sentatives of the Samkhya-philosophy, the Tattva-sainasa
. and the Karikas *, do not even allude to the difficulty
arising from the Isvara question, which seems to me an
important argument in favour of their antiquity. The
charge of atheism became more popular in later times, so
that in the Padma-pura/na the charge of atheism is brought
not against the Samkhya only, but against the Vaiseshika
and Nyaya-philosophies also, nay even against the Purva-
Mimamsa. Two systems only escape this charge, the
Uttara-Mimarasa and the Yoga; and in the case of the
Uttara-Mimamsa, its explanation by $amkara is stigmatised
as no better than Buddhism, because it perverts the mean-
ing of passages of the Veda, which teach the identity of
the individual soul with the highest soul (Brahman without
qualities), and recommends the surrender of good works,
and complete indifference towards this world and the next.
Kapila's Real Arguments.
But it is but fair that we snould hear what Kapila him-
self has to say. And here it is important again to observe
that Kapila does not make a point of vehemently denying
the existence of an Isvara, but seems likewise to have been
brought to discuss the subject, as it were, by the way only,
while engaged in discussing the nature of sensuous percep-
tion (I, 89). He had been explaining perception as cogni-
tion arising from actual contact between the senses and
their respective objects. And here he is stopped by the
inevitable opponent who (lemurs to this definition of per-
ception, because it would not include, as he says, the
perceptions of the Yogins. Kapila replies that these visions
of the Yogins do not refer to external objects, and that,
without denying their reality, he is dealing with the per-
ceptions of ordinary mortals only. But the controversy
does not end here. Another opponent starts up and main-
tains that Kapila's definition of perception is faulty, <?f at
all events not wide enough because it does not include the
1 Hall, Preface to Sawkliya-sara, p. 39, note, and Introducttor to
Sawkhya-prava/cana.
328 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
perception of the Isvara or Lord. It is then that Kapila
turns round on his opponent, and says that this Isvara, this,
as it is pretended, perceptible tsvara, has never been provecl
bo exist at all, has never been established by any of the
three legitimate instruments of knowledge or PramfiTias.
This may seem to us to amount to a . denial of an tsvara,
but Vigr/i&na-Bhikshii remarks with a great deal of truth,
that if Eapila had wished to deny the existence of God, he
would have said Isvarabhav&t, and not IsvarasiddheA, that
is, because Isvara does npt exist, and not, as he says,
because Isvara has not been proved to exist. Anyhow this
is not the tone of a philosopher who wants to preach
atheism, and in what follows we shall see that it is the
manner rather than the matter of the -proof of an Isvara
which is challenged by Kapila and defended by his
antagonist. Taking his stand on the ground that the
highest blessedness or freedom consists in having renounced
all acti\7ity, because every activity presupposes some kind
of desire, which is of evil, he says ' that every proof in
support of an Isvara as a maker or Lord, a Sat-kara, ~vould
break down. For if he were supposed to be above all
variance and free, he could not have willed to create the
world; if he were not so, he would be distracted and
deluded and unfit for the supreme task of an Isvara/ Then
follows a more powerful objection, based on the Tact that
the Veda speaks of an Isvara or Lord, and therefore he
must exist. Kapila does not spurn that argument, but, as
he has recognised once for all the Veda as a legitim^e
source of information, he endeavours to prove that the
Vedic passages relied on in support of the existence of a
maker of the world, have a different purpose, namely the
glorification of a liberated Self or Purusha, or of one who
y devotion has attained supernatural power (I, 95). This
is explained by Aniruddha as referring either to a Self
which is almost, though not altogether, free, because if
altogether free, it could have no desire, nor even the desire
of creation; or to a Yogin who by devotion has obtained
supernatural powers. Vigrtfana-Bhikshu goes a step further,
and declares that it refers either to a Self that has obtained
freedom from all variance and disturbance, or to the Self that
KABILA'S BEAL ARGUMENTS. 329
is and has remained free from all eternity, that is, to the
Adi-purusha, the First Self, who in the theistic Yoga-philo-
sophy takes the place of the Creator, and who may, for all
we know, have been the origin of the later Purushottama.
Aniruddha thereupon continues that it might be said
that without the superintendence of some such intelligent
being, unintelligent Prakriti would never have acted. But
this also he rejects, if it is meant to prove the existence of
an active creator, because the superintendence of the
Purusha of the Sa/wkhyas over Prakriti is not an active
one, but arises simply from proximity, as in the case of
a crystal (I. 96). What he means is that in the S&mkhya
the Purusha is never a r'eal maker or an agent. He simply
reflects on Prakriti, or the products of Prakriti are reflected
on him ; and as anything reflected in a crystal or a mirror
-seems to move when the mirror is moved, though it remains
all the time quite unmoved, thus the Purusha also seems to
move and to be an agent, while what is really moving,
changing, or being created is Prakriti. The Purusha there-
fore cannot be called superintendent, as if exercising an
active influence over Prakriti, but Prakrit! is evolved up
to the point of Manas under the eyes of Purusha, and the
Purusha does no more than witness all this, wrongly
imagining all the time that he is himself the creator or
ruler of the world. In support of this Aniruddha quotes
a passage from the Bhagavad-gita (III, 27 ): * All emar ations
of Prakrit! are operated by the GuTias ; but the Self
deluded by Ahamkara imagines that he is the operator/
Another objection is urged against the S&mkhya view
that the Purusha is not a doer or creator, namely that, in
that case, a dead body also might be supposed to perform
the act of eating. But no, he says, such acts are performed
not by av dead or inactive Atman, as little as a dead body
eats. It is the individual Purusha (6riva) that performs
such acts, when under the influence of Prakriti (Buddhi,
Ahamkara, and Manas), while the Atman or Purusha
remains for ever unchanged.
A last attempt is made to disprove the neutrality or non-
activity of the Atman, that is, the impossibility of his being
a creator, namely the uselessness of teaching anything,
330 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
supposing the Self to be altogether without cognition. To
this the answer is that though the Atman is not cognitive,
yet the Manas is. The Atman reflects on the Manas, and
hence the illusion that he himself cognises, while in reality
he does no more than witness the apprehension of the
Manas. Thus when it is said, ' He is omniscient and omni-
potent/ he (in spite of the gender) is meant for Prakriti, as
developed into Manas, and not for the Purusha who in
reality is a mere witness of such omniscience and omni-
potence (III, 56), deluded, for a time, by Prakriti.
-
The Theory of Harm an.
In another place where the existence of an Isvara, or
active ruler of the world, is once more discussed in the
Samkhya-Sutras, the subject is again treated not so much
for its own sake, as in order to settle the old question of
the continuous effectiveness of works (Karman). The
reward of every work done, according to Kapila, does not
depend on any ruler of the world ; the works themselves
are working on for evermore. If it were otherwise, we
should have to ascribe the creation of the world, with all
its suffering, to a Lord who is nevertheless supposed to be
loving and gracious.
Madhava in his Sarva-darsana-saragraha (translated by
Cowell arid Gough, p. 228) uses the same argument, saying :
' As for the doctrine of " a Supreme Being who acts from
compassion/ what has been proclaimed by beat of drum
by the advocates of His existence, this has wellnigh passed
away out of hearing, since the hypothesis fails to meet
either of the two alternatives. For does He act thus before
or after creation ? If you say before, we reply that as pain
cannot arise in the absence of bodies, &c., there will be no
need, as long as there is no creation, for any desire to free
living beings from pain (which is the main characteristic of
compassion) ; and if you adopt the second alternative, you
will be reasoning in a circle, as on the one hand you will
hold that God created the world through compassion, and
on the other hand that He compassionated it after He had
created it/*'
THE THEORY OF KARMAN. 331
i
And again, as every activity presupposes desire, the Lord,
whether working for Himself or for others, would ipso facto
cease to be free from desires. This argument is examined from
different points of view, but always leads to^the same result
in the end ; that is to say, to the conviction that the highest
state of perfection and freedom from all conditions is really
far higher than the ordinary conception of the status of the
popular Hindu deities, higher even than that of an 1 svara,
if conceived as a maker and ruler of the universe. This
concept of the liberated Purusha or Atman has in fact
superseded the concept of the Isvara, and to have made
this quite clear would have been, on the part of Kapila, by
far the most effective defence against the charge of atheism1.
The conscience of Kapila and of the ancient Samkhyas was
evidently satisfied with a belief in a Purusha in which the
old Concepts of the divine and the human had been welded
into one, without claiming even the aid of an Adi-purusha,
a first Purusha, which was a later expedient.
Nor must it be forgotten that other philosophies also
besides the Samkhya have been suspected or openly
accused of atheism for the same reason. It is easy to
understand why almost every philosophy, whether Indian
or European, if it endeavours to purify, to dehumanise, and
to exalt the idea of the Godhead, can hardly avoid the
suspicion of denying the old gods, or of being without
a belief in the God of the vulgar. It is well known that
on that ground even the early Christians did not escape the
suspicion of atheism.
Even Craimini's Purva-Mima/wsa, though based on the
belief that the Veda is of superhuman origin, and though
entirely devoted to the interpretation of the Vedic sacrifice,
has been charged with* atheism, because it admitted the
independent evolution of works, which was supposed to
imply a denial of God ; nor did the Nyaya and Vaiseshika
systems, as wt s»w, escape the same suspicion. It may be
that the recognition of the authority of the Veda was con-
sidered sufficient to quiet the theological conscience; but
there is certainly, so far as I can see, no passage in the
Nyaya and Vaiseshika-Sutras where an Isvara is clearly
denied or postulated , either as the author or as the controller
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
of the infinitesimally small elements or atoms of which the
world is by them supposed to consist. There is one passage
in the Nyaya-Sfttras in which the question of a divine Lord
is discussed in the usual way, namely Book V, Sfttras 19-21,
but otherwise we hear nothing of what the tsvara is meant
to be or to do.
These attacks, *as met by the Nyaya philosophers, may
be looked upon as purely academic, but the tone in which
they are m^t, for instance, by later philosophers such as
Madhava in his Sarva-darsana-samgraha, shows that they
at all events took them seriously. As specimens of Indian
casuistry some extracts from M&dhava's chapter on the
Nyaya may here be of interest. I quote from the transla-
tion by Cowell and Gough (p. 171) : * { It is quite true/ he
says, 'that none of the three Pram&nas can prove the
existence of a Supreme Being. Perception cannot, because
the Deity, being devoid of form, must be beyond the
senses. Inference cannot, because there is no universal
proposition* or middle term that could apply. The Veda
cannot, because we Naiyayikas have ourselves proved it
to be non-eternal. All this we admit to be quite true, that
is, we admit that a Supreme isvara cannot be established
by proof. But is there not, on the other side, the old
argument that the mountains, seas, &c., must have had
a maker, because they possess the nature of being effects,
quite as much as a jar (or, as we should say, a watch) ?
And that they are effects can easily be proved by the fact
that they possess parts, the.se parts existing in intimate
relation, and again by the fact that they possess a limited
magnitude half- way between what is infinitely great and
infinitesimally small.* "Nor has any proof ever been pro-
duced on the opposite side to show%that the mountains had
no maker. For if any one should argue that the mountains
cannot have had a maker because they were not produced
by a body, just as the eternal ether — this pretended in-
ference would no more stand examination than the young
fawn could stand the attack of the full-grown lion, for you
have not even shown that what you say about the eternal
ether is a real fact. We therefore abide by our old argu-
ment that the mountains have the nature of effects, and if
THE THEORY OF KAEMAN. . 333
they had no maker, they could not be effects, that, is, pro-
duced, not by themselves alone, but by concurrent causes,
jne of them being a maker. A maker is a being possessed
of a combination of volition, desire to act, a knowledge of
proper means, setting in motion all other causes, but itself
moved by none (the Aristotelian K.IVQVV aKwrirov).'
But though yielding to this argument, the objector asks*
next, what object this maker or tevara could have had in
view in creating the world. A feeling of compassion, if
he had any, should surely have induced him to create all
living beings happy, and not laden with misery, since this
militates against his compassion. Hence he concludes that
it would not be fitting to admit that God created the
world. Hereupon the Nyaya philosopher becomes very
wroth and exclaims : ' O thou crest-jewel of the a-theistic
school, be pleased to close for a moment thy envy-dimmed
eyes, and to consider the following suggestions. His action
in creating is indeed caused by compassion only, but the
idea of a creation which shall consist of nothing but
happiness is inconsistent with the nature of things, since
there cannot but arise eventual differences from the different
results which will ripen from the good and evil actions
(Karman) of the beings who are to be created.*
In answer to this, the atheistic opponent returns once
more to the authority of the Veda and says : ' But then,
how will you remedy your deadly sickness of reasoning in
a circle [for you have to prove th'e Veda by the authority
of God, and then again God's existence by the Veda]/
But" the theistic interpreter and defender of the Nyaya
is not silenced so easily, and replies : ' We defy you to
point out any reasoning in a circle in our argument. Do
you suspect this "reciprocal dependence of each" which
you call "reasoning in a circle," in regard to their being
produced or in regard to their being known? It cannot
be the former, for though the production of the Veda is
dependent on God, still as God Himself is eternal, there is
no possibility of His being produced; nor can it be in
regard to theii being known, for even if our knowledge of
God were dependent on the Veda, the Veda might be
learned from some other source; nor, again can it be in
334 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
regard to the knowledge of the non-eternity of the Veda,
for the non-eternity of the Veda is easily perceived by any
Yogin endowed with transcendent faculties (Tivra, &c..).
Therefore, when God has been rendered propitious by
the performance of duties which produce His favour, the
desired end, liberation, is obtained; thus everything is clear/
Everything may be clear to one accustomed to the Indian
way of arguing; but from our point of view it would
certainly seem that, .though the Nyaya does not teach the
non-existence of an Isvara, it is not very successful in
proving by its logic the necessity of admitting a maker or
ruler of the world, that is, an tsvara.
-rne Pour Books of Yog-a-Stitras.
If now we turn to the Yoga-Sutras of Pata/?</ali we find
that the first book, the Samadhi-pada, is devoted to an
explanation of the form and aim of Yoga, and of Samadhi,
meditation or absorption of thought ; the second, the
Sadhana-pada, explains the means of arriving at tLis ab-
sorption ; the third, Vibhuti-pada, gives an account of the
supernatural powers that can be obtained by absorption
and ascetic exercises ; while the fourth, the Kaivalyapada,
explains Kaivalya to be the highest object of all these
exercises, of concentration of thought, and of deep absorp-
tion and ecstasy. Kaivalya, from Kevala, alone, means the
isolation of the soul from the universe and its return to
itself, and not to any other being, whether tsvara, Brahman,
or any one else.
That this is the right view of the case is confirmed by
the remarks made by Vi#/?ana-Bhikshu in his Yoga-sara-
samgraha, p. 18. Here we, are told that even when there
is some imperfection in the employment of the above
means (faith, energy, memory, absorbing meditation, and
knowledge), the two results (absorption and liberation) can
be brought very near by the grace of the Parama-lsvara,
the Highest Lord, and secured by devotion to Him.
By Parama-lsvara or the Highest Lord is here meant
that particular Purusha (Self) who was never touched by
the five troubles, nescience and the rest, nor by virtue or
TRUE OBJECT OF YOGA. 335
vice and their various developments, or by any residue
(results of former deeds) in general. Vigwana-Bhikshu
abstains from saying much more on the Lord, because, as
he says, he has treated of this Being very fully in his
remarks on the Brahma-Sutras I, i. He probably refers
to his commentary on the Vedanta; and he is evidently
quite convinced that, however different the roads followed
by the Vedantins and Samkhya-yogins may be, the Divine
idea of both schools is much the same. He only adds that
the powers and omniscience of the Isvara are equalled or
excelled by none, that he is the spiritual chief and father
of all the gods, such as Brahma, Vishnu, and Hara, that he
imparts spiritual vision (G^ana-A:akshusV through the Vedas,
and that he is the inner guide, and called rramva. Devotion
to Him is said to consist in contemplation and to end in
direct perception. Steadfastness with regard to Isvara is
represented as the principal factor in abstract meditation
and in liberation, because it leads to greater nearness to
the final goal, steadiness with regard to the human self
being secondary only. This devotion to Isvara is also
declared to put an end to all the impediments, such as
illness, &c. (I, 30) ; and a passage is quoted from the Smriti,
' For one desiring liberation the most comfortable path is
clinging to or resting on Vishnu ; otherwise, thinking only
with the mind, a man is sure to be deceived/
True Object of Yoga.
It is clear throughout, the whole of this chapter on Isvara
that devotion to him is no more than one of the means,
though, it may be, a very important one, for the attainment
of liberation, the highest goal of the Yoga. But it is not
that highest goal itself, but only a means towards it, nor
could it be accepted as the most important feature of the
Yoga. The really important character of the Yoga con-
sists in its teaching that, however true the Samkhya-philo-
sophy may be, it fails to accomplish its end without those
practical helps which the Yoga-philosophy alone supplies.
The human mind, though fully enlightened as to its true
nature, would soon be carried away again by the torrent
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
of life ; the impressions of the senses and all the cares and
troubles of every-day life would return, if there were no
means of making the mind as firm as a rock. Now thi^
steadying of the mind, this Yoga, is what Pata/fyali is
chiefly concerned with.
We saw that in the second Sfttra he explained Yoga as
/fitta-vritti-nirodha, that is, restraining or steadying the
actions and distractions of thought. Vritti, which I trans-
late by action, has also been rendered by movement or
function ; while iTitta, which I give as thought, has often
been translated by mind or the thinking principle. It is
curious that the Yoga should have employed a word which,
as far as I know, was not a recognised technical term of
the Samkhya. In the Samkhya, the term would be Manas,
mind, but Manas in a state of activity, and, of course, as
a development of Ahamkara and Buddhi. It has to be
taken here as a psychological term, as a name for thought,
as carried on in real life, and indirectly only of the instru-
ment of thought. As I had to use mind for Manas in the
Samkhya-pbilosophy, it would be difficult to find a better
rendering of the word when used by Yoga philosophers.
Of course Manas is always different from Buddhi, in so far
as it is a modification of Buddhi, which itself has passed
through Ahamkara or the differentiation of subjectivity
and objectivity. But for practical purposes, what is meant
by Jffitta is simply our thought or our thinking, and
though mind, with us also, has been defined very differently
by different philosophers, and is used most promiscuously
in common parlance, its etymological relationship with
Manas pointed it out as the most convenient rendering of
Manas, provided always that we remember its being a
technical term of the Yoga-philosophy, as we have to do
whenever we render Prakrt/ti by nature. Nirodha, re-
straint, does not mean entire suppression of all movements
of thought, but at first concentration only, though it leads
in the end to something like utter vacuity or self-absorption.
In all the functions of the Manas it must be remembered
that the real self-conscious seer or perceiver is, for the time
FUNCTIONS OF THE MIND- 337
being, the Purusha or Self. It is he who is temporarily
interested in what is going on, though not absorbed in it
except by a delusion only. Like the moon reflected in the
ripples of the waters, the Self appears as moving in the
waves which break against it from the vast ocean of
Prakriti, but in reality it is riot moving. We saw that the
mind, when receiving impressions from the outer world,
was supposed in Hindu philosophy to assume for the time
being the actual form of the object perceived, but, when
once perfect in Yoga, it perceives nothing but itself.
functions of the Mind.
The principal acts and functions of the mind are described
as right notion, wrong notion, fancy, sleep, and remember-
ing, and they may be either painful or not.
Right notions are brought about by the three PramaTias,
so well known from different systems of Indian philosophy,
as sensuous perception, inference, and testimony, Vedic or
otherwise. It is significant Athat Pata;70ali should have
used^Agama instead of the Aptava&ana of the Samkhya,
for Agama means distinctly the Veda, and thus would
establish once for all what is called the orthodox character
of the Yoga.
Wrong notions require no explanation. They are illus-
trated by our mistaking mother-of-pearl for silver, a rope
for a snake, &c. A state of doubt also when we are uncer-
in whether what we see at a distance is a man or the
trunk of a tree, is classed among wrong notions.
Fancy is explained as chiefly due to words ; and a
curious instance of fancy is given when we speak of the
intelligence of the Self or Purusha, or of the head of Rahu,
$ fact being that there is no intelligence belonging to
Self, but that the Self is altogether intelligence, just as
Rahu, the monster that is supposed to swallow the moon,
is not a being that has a head, but is a head and nothing
{else.
Sleep is defined as that state (Witti) of the mind which
ihas nothing for its object. The commentator, however,
jexpiains that in sleep also a kind of perception must take
t*
338 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
place, because, otherwise, we could not say that we had
slept well or badly.
Remembering is the not wiping out of an object that has
once been perceived. While true perception, false percep-
tion, and fancy take place in a waking state, a dream,
which is a perception of vivid impressions, takes place in
sleep, while sleep itself has no perceptible object. Remem-
bering may depend on true or false perceptions, on fancy,
and even on dreams.
Exercises.
Now all these actions or functions have to be restrained,
and in t the end to be suppressed, and this is said to be
effected by exercises (Abhy&sa) and freedom from passions
(Vairagya), I, 12.
Indian philosophers have the excellent habit of always
explaining the meaning of their technical terms. Having
introduced for the first tinie the terms exercise and freedom
from passion, Pata/vgrali asks at once : ' What is Abhyasa
or exercise ? ' Abhyasa is generally used in the sense of
repetition, but he answers that he means hereafter to use
this term in the sense of effort towards steadiness (Sthiti)
of thought. And if it be asked what is meant by steadiness
or Sthiti, he declares that it means that state of the mind
when, free from all activity (Witti), it remains in its own
character, that is, unchanged. Such effort must be con-
tinuous or repeated, as implied by the term Abhy&sa (1, 13).
This Abhyasa is said to become firmly grounded, if
ractised for a long time thoroughly and unintermittingly
Dispassion, Vairagya.
Next follows the definition of dispassion (Vairagya), as
the consciousness of having overcome (the world) on the
part of one who has no longer any desire for any objects
whatsoever, whether visible or revealed (I, 15).
Here visible JJDrishta,) stands for percep^ble or sensuous
objects, while Anusravika may be translated by revealed,
as it is derived from Anu&rava, and this is identical with
$ruti or Veda. Perhaps Anusrava is more general than
DISPASSION, VAIRAGYA. 339
Veda, including all tha.t has been handed down, such as the
stories about the happiness of the gods in paradise
(Devaloka), &c. The consciousness of having subdued or
overcome all such desires and being no longer the slave of
them, that, we are told, is Vairagya or dispassionateness,
and that is the highest point which the student of Yoga-
philosophy hopes to reach.
It is interesting to see how deeply this idea of Vairagya
or dispassionateness must have entered into the daily life
of the Hindus. It is constantly mentioned as the highest
excellence not for ascetics only, but for everybody. It
sometimes does not mean much more than what we mean
by the even and subdued temper of the true gentleman, but
it signifies also the highest unworldliness and a complete
surrender of all selfish desires. A very good description of
what Vairagya is or ought to be is preserved ta us in the
hundred verses ascribed to Bhartrihari (650 A.D.), which
are preceded by two other centuries of verses, one on
worldly wisdom and the other on love. Many of these
verses occur again and again in other works, and it is very
doubtful whether Bhartrihari was really the original
author of them all, or whether he only collected them aa
Subhashitas *. Anyhow they show how the philosophy of
Vairagya had leavened the popular mind of India at that
distant time, nor has* it ceased to do so to the_present day.
It was perhaps bold, after Bhartn'hari, to undertake a
similar collection of verses on the same subject. But as the
Vairagya-sataka of (?aina/carya seems in more recenir times
to* have acquired considerable popularity in India, a few
extracts from it may serve to show that the old teaching of
Pata>7</ali and Bhartrihari has not yet Been forgotten in
their native country.
' Death follows man like a shadow, and pursues him like
an enemy ; perform, therefore, good deeds, so that you may
reap a blessing hereafter/
' Frequent enjoyment of earthly prosperity has led to your
sufferings. Pity it is that you have not tried the " Know
Yourself."'
1 His work is actually called Subhashita-trisati, see Report of Sanskrit
and Tamil MSS., 1896-97, by Seshagiri Sastri, p. 7.
Z 2
34<> INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
' Live in the world but be not of it, is the precept taught
by our old Kishis, and it is the only means of liberating
yourself from the world/
' The body is perishable and transitory, white the Self is
imperishable and everlasting ; it is connected with the body
only by the link of Karman ; it should riot be subservient
to it/ '
* If, through sheer negligence, you do nothing good for
your fellow creatures, you will be your own enemy, and
become a victim to the miseries of this world/
* Better to do less good, with purity of heart, than to do
more with jealousy, pride, malice, or fraud. Little, but
good and loving work, is always valuable, like a pure gem,
the essence of a drag, or pithy advice/
'If you are unable to subject yourself physically to
penances, to undergo austerities, and engage in deep con-
templation, the proper course to liberate your soul from the
hard fetters of Karman would be to keep the passions of
your heart under control, to check your desires, to carry out
your secular affairs with calmness, to devote yourself to the
worship of God, and to realise in yourself the " Permanent
Truth," bearing in mind the transitory nature of the
universe/
' To control your mind, speech, and body, does not mean
to be thoughtless, silent or inactive, like beasts or trees ;
but, instead of thinking what is evil, speaking untruth, and
doing harm to others, mind, speech, and body should be
applied to good thoughts, good words, and good deeds/
iMspassionateness, as here taught for practical purposes
chiefly, reaches its highest point in the eyes of the Yoga-
philosopher, when a man, after he has attained to the
knowledge of Purusha, has freed himself entirely from all
desire for the three Gunas (or their products). This is at
least what Pata/?</ali says in a somewhat obscure Sutra
(I, i j) \ This Svttra seems intended to describe the highest
state within reach of the true Vairagin, involving indiffer-
ence not only to visible and revealed objects, but likewise
towards the GuTias, that is, if I am not mistaken, the
1 Garbe, Grand riss, p. 49.
MEDITATION WITH OR WITHOUT AN OBJECT. 34!
twenty-four Tattvas, here called Ckmas1, because deter^
rained by them. The knowledge of the Purusha implies
the distinction between what is Purusha, the Self, and what
is not, and therefore also between Purusha and the GuTias
of Prakriti. Vigwana-Bhikshu explains i£ by Atmanat-
mavivekasakshatkarat, i. e. from realising the difference
between what is Self and what is not Self, arid not as
a possessive compound : the sense, however, remaining much
the same. It is curious that Rajendralal Mitra should have
rendered PurushakhyateA by c conducive to a knowledge of
God./ From a purely philosophical point of view Purusha
may be translated by God, but such a translation would be
misleading here, particularly as the Sutra 23, on the
devotion to the Lord, follows so soon after It would have
been better also to translate 'arising from,' than * conducive
to/
Meditation Wftfe or Without ftn Object.
Patawgrali next proceeds (I, 17) to explain an important
distinction between the two kinds of meditative absorption
(Samadhi), which he calls Sampragr/lata and Asainpragwata.
This seems to mean that there is one kind of meditation
when our thoughts are directed and fixed on a definite
object, and another when there is no definite object of
meditation left. Here the spirit of minute distinction shows
itself once more, for though these two kinds of meditation
may well be kept apart, and the former be considered as
preliminary to the latter, the numerous subdivisions of
each hardly deserve our notice. We are told that what is
called conscious meditation may have for its object either
one or the other of the twenty-four Tattvas or the tsvara,
looked upon as one of the rurushas. The twenty- four
1 These Chinas are more fully described in II, 19, whero we read that
the four Gunas or Gunaparvani «r« meant for (i) Vi.«esha, i.e. the gross
elements and the organs; (a) Avisesha, i.e. the subtle elements and the
mind ; (3) the Limgamatra, i.e. Buddhi ; (4) the Alitnga, i.e. Praknti as
Avyakta. In the commentary to I, 45, the same classes of Gunas are
described as Aliwga, a name of Pradhana, Yisishfeilimga, the gross elements
(Bhutan!) ; Avisish&litnga, €he subtle essences and the senses; Limga-
matra, i.e. Buddhi, and Alimga, that is, the Pradhana.
342 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Tattvas are called unconscious, the twenty -fifth or Purusna
is conscious. When meditation (Bhavana) has something
definite for its object it is called not only Pra#/?ata, known,"
or, as referred to the subject, knowing, but also Savi^a,
literally with a seed, which I am inclined to take in the
sense of having some seed on which it can fix, and from
which it can develop. The Asampra^wata-samadhi, or
meditation without a known object, is called Avi</a, not
having a seed from which to spring or to expand. Native
Commentators, however, take a different view.
Those who in their Samadhi do not go beyond the
twenty-four Tattvas, without seeing the twenty-fifth, the
Purusha, but at all events identify themselves no longer
with the body^ are called Videhas, bodyless ; others who do
not see the Purusha yet, but only existence, are called
Prak?itilayas, absorbea in Prakriti.
This again is not quite clear to me, but it is hardly
necessary that we should enter into all the intricate sub-
divisions of the two kinds of meditation, such as Savitarka,
argumentatiYe, Savi&ara, deliberative, Sananda, joyous, and
Sasmita1, with false conceit. They may become important
in a more minute study of the Yoga, but they can hardly
be of interest to speculative philosophers except so far as
they furnish another proof of a long continued study of
the Yoga-philosophy in India before the actual composition
of the Sutras.
The Asampragwata-samadhi, or meditation without a
known object, or, it may be, unconscious meditation, is
explained as being preceded by a repetition of negative
perception, and as the end of all previous impressions.
I, 18.
This Sutra has been differently explained by different
European and native commentators. It may mean that
there is a residue of previous impressions, or that there is
not. The Samskaras, which I have rendered by previous
impressions, are everything that has given to the mind its
1 Asmita is different from. Anamk&ra, and means the misconception
that I am (Asm!) what I am not* such as Prakriti, Buddhi, Ahawkara,
Manas, &c.
ISVAEA ONCE MORE. 343
peculiar character, its flavour, so to say, or its general dis-
position,
'Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem
Testa diu.'
It may be intended that these Samskaras are either all
wiped out, or that there is but a small residue of them
manifested in the final act of the stopping all functions
of the mind.
In summing up what has been said about the different
kinds of Samadhi, Patarcgrali says (I, 19) once more that in
the case of the Videhas and Prak?*itilayas (as explained
before, p. 342) the object or, if you like, the cause of Samadhi
is the real world (Bhava), but that for other Yogins there
are preliminary conditions or steps to Samadhi, namely,
faith, energy, memory, concentration, and knowledge suc-
ceeding each other. Every one of these Samadhis is again
carefully defined, and some more helps are mentioned in
the next Sutra (I, 21), where we read that Samadhi may
be sa:d to be near or within reach when the zeal or the will
is strong. These strong-willed or determined aspirants are
again divided (I, 22) according as the means employed by
them are mild, moderate, or excessive. Thus we get nine
classes of Yogins, those who employ mild means, with mild,
with moderate, or with excessive zeal ; those who employ
moderate means, with mild, with moderate, or with excessive
zeal; and those who employ excessive means with mild,
with moderate, or with excessive zeal.
Such divisions and subdivisions which fully justify the
name of S&mkhya, enumeration, make both the S&mkhya-
and Yoga-philosophies extremely tedious, and I shall in
future dispense with them, though they may contain now
and then some interesting observations.
isvara Once More.
After an enumeration of all these means of Yoga to be
employed by the student, follows at last the famous Sfltra
I, 23, which has always been supposed to contain, in answer
to Kapila, the proof of the existence of a Deity, and which
I translated before by ' Devotion to the Lord/ The com-
344 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
mentator calls it simply an easy expedient, an alternative.
Nor is it right, with Rajendralal Mitra, to translate this
Sutra at once by ' Devotion to (jfod/ Isvara, as we saw,
is not God in the sense in which Brahm& might be called
so. He is a God, the highest God, but always one o£ many
Purushas; and though he was looked upon as holy (I, 25)
and omniscient, he never seems to have risen to the rank
of a Creator; for which there is really no room in the
Sa??ikhya system. Though it is true, no doubt, that the
orthodox Yogins derived great comfort from this Sutra as
shielding Pata/vgfali against the charge of atheism, it would
be impossible to look upon it as a real proof in support
of the existence of God, or as more than a somewhat forced
confession of faith.
Other Means of Obtaining Sam&dhi.
The benefits arising from this devotion to the Lord are
not essentially different from those that are to be obtained
from other IJpayas or means of attaining Samadhi, as may
be seen from Siltras I, 29 to I, 33 translated bef ore* - Nor
is this devotion even the last or the highest Upaya, for
Patawgrali goes on immediately after to mention other means
equally conducive to concentrated meditation or absorption
in the thought of one object Expedients, such as the
expulsion and retention of the breath, follow next, the so-
called Pra«ayamas, which we can well believe, may have
been really useful as contrivances to draw away the thoughts
from all subjects except the one chosen for meditation,
generally one of the Tattvas. But this opens far too large
a subject for our purpose in this place. We approach here
to the pathological portion of the Yoga, the so-called Ha£ ha,
or Kriya-yoga, a subject certainly far more important than
has generally been supposed, but a subject for students of
pathology rather than of philosophy, unless, as is now the
fashion, we include the so-called physico- psychological
experiments under the name of philosophy. One thing
may certainly be claimed for our Sfttras ; they are honest
in their statements as to the discipline that can be applied
to the mind through the body, and even if they could be
proved to have been mistaken in their observations, their
OTHER MEANS OF OBTAINING SAMADHI. 345
illusions do not seem to me to have been mere frauds, at
least in the days of Patatfgali, though it is far from my
purpose to undertake a defence of all the doings and sayings
of modern Yogins or Mahatmans.
Next to the moderation or restraint of the breathing,
follow descriptions of how the mind, by being directed to
the tip of the nose, cognises a heavenly odour, and the samt,
with all the other senses, which therefore are supposed to
have no longer any inclination towards outward objects,
having everything they want in themselves. We are next
told of the perception of an inward luminous and blessed
state, which produces a steadiness and contentedness of the
mind when directed towards objects which no longer appeaj
to the passions (I, 37). No wonder that even objects seen in
dreams or in sleep are supposed to answer the same purpose,
that is, to fix the attention. In fact any object may be
chosen for steady meditation, such as the moon without,
or our heart within, provided always tlmt these objects do
not appeal to our passions.
All these are means towards an end, and there can be no
doubt that they have proved efficacious ; only, as so often
happens^ the means have evidently encroached in this case
also, on the aims, and to such an extent 'that Yoga has often
been understood to consist in these outward efforts rather
than in~ that concentration of thought which they were
meant to produce, and which was to lead on to Kaivalya
or spiritual separateness and freedom. This true Yoga is
often distinguished as R%a-yoga or royal Yoga from the
other called Kriy&-yoga or working Yoga, which is some-
times called Ha£Aa-yoga, though it is not clear why.
Though some of these bodily exercises are represented
as serving as a kind of staircase on which the mind ascends
step by step, we are told at other times that any step may
be useful, and that some may be skipped or taken for passed.
Now, if *we ask what is the result of all this, we are told
in SiHra 41 that a man who has put an end to all the
motions and emotions of his mind, obtains with regard to
all objects of his senses conformation grounded in them
(sic), or steadiness and consubstantiation, the idea being
that the miind is actually modified or changed by the
346 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
objects perceived (I, 41). As a crystal, when placed near
a red flower, becomes really red to our eyes, in the same
way the mind is supposed to become tinged by the objects
perceived. This impression remains true as grounded in
the object, and our mind should always be centred on one
object of meditation.
Having mentioned in a former Sfttra that Samadhi (here
called Samapatti) may be either Savitarka or Savi/cara, lie
now explains (I, 42) that when meditation is mixed with
uncertainties as to word, meaning, or knowledge, it is called
Savitarka. Thus, supposing that our meditation was cen-
tred on a cow, the question would be whether we should
meditate on the sound cow, Sk. Go, or on the meaning of
it (Begriff), that is the genus cow, or the idea or picture
(Vorstellung) conveyed by it. Such a meditation would
be called Savitarka. Its opposite is Nirvitarka when all
memory vanishes and the meaning alone, without any form,
remains, or, as the commentator puts it, though not much
more clearly, when the knowing mind (Pragwa), tinged
with the form of its object, forgets its own subjective* form
of knowing, and becomes, as it were, one in form with the
object.
After Samadhi, both Savitarka and Nirvitarka, has been
described, the next division is into Savi/cara and Nirvi/fcara.
They are defined as having reference to subtle objects
(I, 44), that is, to the Tanmatras, essences, and the senses,
and thus we learn that the former, the Savitarka Samadhi,
had to deal with material objects only. Subtle objects
include Prakriti also, and there is nothing subtle beyond
it, for the Purusha is neither subtle nor non-subtle.
If we look upon the Nirvi&ara Samadhi as the highest
of the Samadhis, then there would follow on the completion
of that meditation contentment or peace of the Self (Atman).
Knowledge in this state is called J&tambhara, right or
truth-bearing, quite different from the knowledge which is
acquired by inference or by revelation. And from this
knowledge springs a disposition which overcomes all former
dispositions and renders them superfluous.
KAIVALYA, FREEDOM. 347
Sam&dhi Apragw&t&.
This knowledge therefore wotfld seem to be the highest
goal of the true Yogin ; but no, there is still something beyond
knowledge, and that is what was called before Apragwata
Samadhi, meditation without any object, or pure ecstasy.
This restores the Purusha to his own nature, after he has
been delivered from all the outside disturbances of life, and
particularly from the ignorance that caused him to identify
himself for awhile with any of the works of Prakriti
(Asmita).
Kaivalya, Freedom.
This short account of what is contained in the first
chapter of the Yoga- Sutras contains almost all that can
be of interest to European philosophers in the system of
Pata^alij and it is not impossible that it may have
originally formed a book complete in itself. It shows us
the whole drift of the Yoga in its simplest form, beginning
with the means of steadying and concentrating the mind
on certain things, and more-, particularly on the twenty- four
Tattvas, as taken over f rom the Samkhya, and leading on
to a description of meditation, no longer restricted to any
of the Tattvas, which is ta/ntamount to a meditation which
does not dwell on anythin.g that can be offered by an ideal
representation of what is (jailed the real world. It is really
meditation of each Purusha on himself only, as distinct
from all the Tattvas of F'rakriti. This is Kaivalya or the
highest bliss in the eyes of the true Yogin, and it may well
be called- the highest achievement of Gn ana-yoga, i. e. Yoga
carried on by thought or by the will alone. Outward
helps, such as the Praii&yama, the in- and out-breathing,
are just alluded to, but that is almost the only allusion to
what in later times came-, to be the most prominent part of
the practical or Rriya-yo-ga, namely, the postures and other
ascetic performances (Yogangas), supposed to prepare the
mind for its own higher efforts. The above-mentioned
Isvara-pranidhana, ' Devotion to the Lord/ is classed here
as simply one of the Yogangas or accessories of Yoga,
together with purification, contentment, penance, and
mumbling of prayers (II, 32), showing how little of real
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
philosophical importance was ascribed to it by Pataw^ali.
It helps towards Samadhi, meditation, it is a kind of wor-
ship (Bhakti-visesha) addressed to Bhagavat ; but that ia
all the commentator has to say in recommendation of it.
There is nothing to show that Pata#0ali imagined he had
thereby given a full and satisfactory answer to the most
momentous of all questions, the existence or non-existence
of an individual Creator or Ruler of the world,
It is quite possible that some of my readers will be
disappointed by my having suppressed fuller details about
these matters, but it seems to me that they really have
nothing to do with philosophy in the true sense of the
word ; and those who take an interest in them may easily
consult texts of which there exist English translations, such
as the second and third books of the Yoga-Sutras, and
better still the Ha£Aaprayoga, translated by Shrinivas
Jyangar, Bombay, 1893; On the Vedantie Raj -Yoga, by
Sabhapati Sv&mi, edited by Siris Chandra Basu, Lahore,
1880; the Ghera?ida-samhita, Bombay, 1895, and several
more. There is also a very useful German translation by
H. Walter, * Svatmarama's Ha£Aa-yoga-pradipika, Miinchen,
1893.
Yogangus, Kelps to Tog-a-
lt is true that considerable antiquity is claimed for some
of these Yogangas, or members cf Yoga. $iva himself is
reported to have been their author, and names such as
Vasish£/ia and Ya$wavalkya are quoted as having described
and sanctioned eighty-four postures, while Gorakshanatha
reckoned their true number as 8,400,000 *. I take a few
specimens from Rajendralal Mitra's Yoga Aphorisms, p. 103 : —
' i. Padmasana. The right foot should be placed on the
left thigh, and the left foot on the right thigh ; the hands
should be crossed, and the two great toes should be firmly
held thereby ; the chin should be bent down on the chest,
and in this posture the eyes should be directed to the tip
of the nose. It is called Padmasana, lotus-seat, and ia
highly beneficial, in overcoming all diseases.
1 See Rajendralal Mitra, Yoga Aphorisms, p. 100.
VIBHtfTIS, POWERS. 349
2. Vfrasana. Place each foot under the thigh of its
side, and it will produce the heroic posture Virasana.
3. Bhadrasana. Place the hands in the form of a tortoise
in front of the scrotum, and under the feet, and there is
Bhadrasana, fortunate-seat.
4. Svastikasana. Sitting straight with the feet placed
under the (opposite) thighs is called Svastikasana, cross
seat.
5. Da^dasana. Seated with the fingers grasping the
ankles brought together and with feet placed extended on
the legs, stick-seat/
This will, I believe, be considered enougn and more than
enough, and I shall abstain from giving descriptions of the
Mudras (dispositions of upper limbs), of the Bandhas or
bindings, and of the rules regarding the age, sex, caste, food
and dwelling of the performer of Yoga. To most people
these minute regulations will seem utterly absurd. I do
not go quite so far, for some of these facts have, in a general
way, been recorded and verified so often that we can hardly
doubt that these postures and restraints of breathing, if
properly practised, are helpful in producing complete ab-
straction (Pratyahara) of the senses from their objects, and
a complete indifference of the Yogin towards pain and
pleasure, cold and heat, hunger and thirst \ This is what
is meant by the complete subjugation of the senses (Parama
vasyata indriyanam, II, 55) which it is the highest desire
of the Yogin to realise, and this not for its own sake, but
as an essential condition of perceiving the difference be-
tween the Purusha, the seer, and Prakriti, the spectacle,
Presented to Purusha through the agency of the Manas as
eveloped from Prakr^ti. Professional students of hypno-
tism would probably be able to account for many state-
ments of the followers of Kriya-yoga, which to a reader
without physiological knowledge seem simply absurd and
incredible.
Vibhfttis, Powers,
The third chapter of Pata^^ali's Yoga-Sutras is devoted
to a description of certain powers which were supposed to
1 Cf. N. C. Paul, Yoga-Philosophy.
35O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
be obtainable by the Yogin. They are called Vibhutis, or
simply Bhfttis, Mah&siddhis, JRiddhis, or Aisvaryas. Here
also we are able to watch the transition from rational be-
ginnings to irrational exaggerations, the same tendency
which led from intellectual to practical Yoga. That tran-
sition is clearly indicated in the Yogangas or accessories of
Yoga. In II, 29 we find eight of these accessories men-
tioned, viz. restraints (Yama), subduing (Niyama), postures
/Asana), regulation of breathing (Pr&Ti&y&ma), abstraction
(Pratyah&ra), firmness Dh&ra7i&), contemplation (Dhy&na),
and absorption (Sam&dhi), but in III, 4 three only are
chosen as constituting Samyama, firmness, namely DMran&,
Dhy&na, and Sam&dhi, the other five being treated as
merely outward helps. Dh&ra7i&, firmness in holding, is
explained (III, i) as the confinement of the Manas to one
place, and this place is said to be the tip of the nose, the
navel, the ether, the sky or some other place. By this all
other Vrittis or motions of the Manas are stopped, and the
mind can be kept fixed on one object. The next, Dhy&na,
is contemplation of the one object to the exclusion of all
others; while the third, real Sam&dhi, absorption, arises
when the mind, lost in its work, illuminates one object
only. This Sam&dhi, of which absorption or meditation ;is
a very poor rendering, is explained ctymologically as that
by which the mind, Samyag adhiyate, is thoroughly col-
lected and fixed on one point without any disturbing
causes (III, 3).
Sarwyama and SiddMs.
The Samyama, which comprises the three highest helps
to Yoga, is called internal (III, y) in contradistinction from
the other helps, but, in itself, it is still but an outside help
of the so-called objectless (Nirvigfa) state (III, 8). It is
difficult to find a word for Samyama, firm grasp being no
more than an approximative rendering. It is this Samyama,
however, which leads on to the Siddhis, or perfections.
These are at first by no means miraculous,' though they
become so afterwards, nor are they the last and highest
goal of Yoga-philosophy, as has often been supposed both
by Indian and by European scholars. Patay^ali, before
SA-AfYAMA AND SIDDHIS. 351
explaining these Siddhis, endeavours to show that every
thing exists in three forms, as not yet, as now, and as no
more, and that it is possible from knowing one to know
the other states. Thus a jar is not yet, when it exists only
as clay ; it is now, when it is the visible jar, and it is no
more, when it has been broken up and reduced to dust
again. So in all things, it is said, the future may be known
from the present and the present accounted for by the past.
This is expressed by Pataw^ali in Sutra III, 1 6. So far all
is clear ; but it is difficult to see why Samyama is required
for this, and how it is to be applied to what is called the
threefold modification. Knowledge of the past from the
present, or of the future from the present, is hardly
miraculous yet; though, when we are told that a Yogin
by means of Samyama knows what is to come and what
is past, it sounds very much 'like a claim of the, gift of
prophecy, and certainly became so in time. The same
applies in a still higher degree to the achievements by
means of Samyama claimed by the Yogins in the following
Sutrr 3. Here (III, 1 7) because a man has learned to under-
stand the meanings and percepts indicated by words,, a
Yogin by applying Sa?7iyama to this gift, is supposed to be
able to understand the language of birds and other'animals.
In fact we get more and more into superstitions, by no
means without parallels in other countries, but for all that,
superstitions which have little claim on the attention of
the philosopher, however interesting they may appear to
the pathologist. Then follow other miraculous gifts all
ascribed to Samyama, such as a knowledge of former
existences, a knowledge of another's mind, or thought-
reading, though not of the merely casual objects of his
thoughts, a power of making oneself invisible, a fore-
knowledge of one's death, sometimes indicated by portents.
By Sa?)iyama with respect to kindness, a man may make
himself beloved by everybody. This is again natural, but
soon after we are landed once more in the supernatural,
when we are told that he may acquire the strength of an
elephant, may see things invisible to ordinary eyes, may,
by meditating on the sun, acquire a knowledge of geography,
by meditating on the moon, a knowledge of astronomy, by*
352 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
meditating on the Polar star, a knowledge of the move-
ments of the heavenly bodies, and by meditating on the
navel, a knowledge of anatomy. He may actually suppress
the feelings of hunger and thirst, he may acquire firmness,
see heavenly visions, in fact know everything, if only he
can bring his will or his Samyama to bear on the things
'which produce such effects. More of these Siddhis are
mentioned from IV, 38 to 49, such as the soul entering
another body; ascension to the sky, effulgence, unlimited
hearing, lightness like that of cotton, conquest of all elements,
conquest of the organs, conquest of time, omniscience, &c.
These matters, though trivial, could not be passed over,
whether we accept them as mere hallucinations to which,
as we know, our senses and our thinking organ are liable,
or whether ^e try to account for them in any other way.
They form an essential part of the Yoga-philosophy, and
it is certainly noteworthy, even from a philosophical point
of view, that we find such vague and incredible statements
side by side with specimens of the most exact reasoning
and careful observation.
Miraclas.
In reading the accounts of the miracles performed by
Yogins in' India we have in fact the same feeling of wonder-
ment which we have in reading of the miracles performed
by the Neo-platonists in Alexandria. The same writer
who can enter into the most abstruse questions of philosophy l
will tell us with perfect good faith how he saw -his master
sitting in the air so many feet above the ground. One
instance of the miracles supposed to have been wrought
by a Yogin in India must suffice. A writer with whom
I have been in correspondence, the author of a short life of
his teacher, Sabhapati Svamy, born in Madras in 1840,
relates not only visions which the young student had—
these might be accounted for like other visions — but miracles
which he performed in the presence of many people. We
are told that it was in the twenty-ninth year of his age
that SabhapatS, thirsting for Brahmag^&na or knowledge
* M. M., Theogophy, Loot. xiii.
MIRACLES. 353
of Brahman, had a vision of the Infinite Spirit, who said
.to him : ' Know, O Sabhapati, that I the Infinite Spirit am
in all creations, and all the creations are in me. You are
not separate from me, neither is any soul distinct from me :
I reveal this directly to you, because I see that you are
holy and sincere. I accept you as my disciple, and bid you
rise and go to the Agastya Asrama, where you will find
me. in the shape of Rishis and Yogins.' After that, in the
dead of the night, for it was one o'clock in the morning
when he saw the divine vision, Sabhapati left his wife and
two sons, went out of his house and travelled all the night
till he reached the temple of Mahadeva, also called Vedasrewi-
Svayambhu-sthalam, seven miles from Madras. There he
sat for three days and three nights immured in deep con-
templation, and was again commanded in a vision to pro-
ceed to the Agastya Asrama. After many perils he at last
reached that Asrama and found there, in a large cave, a
great Yogin, two hundred years old, his face benign and
shining with divinity. The Yogin had been expecting him
ever unce Mahadeva had commanded him to proceed to
the Agastya Asrama. He became his pupil, acquired
Brahmac/nana and practised Sam£dhi till he could sit
several days without any food. After seven years his
Guru dismissed him with words that sound strange in the
mouth of a miracle-monger: 'Go, my son, and try to do
good to the world by revealing the truths which thou hast
learned from me. Be liberal in imparting the truths that
should benefit the Grihasthas^ (householders). But beware
lest thy vanity or the importunity of the world lead thee
to perform miracles and show wonders to the profane.'
Sabhapati seems afterwards to have taught in some of the
principal cities and to have published several books, de-
clining, however, to perform any miracles. In 1880 he
was still living at Lahore. But though he himself declined
to perform any of the ordinary miracles, he has left us an
account of ajniracle performed by one of the former members
of his own Asrama. About 1 80 years ago a Yogin passed
through Mysore and visited the Rajah who received him
with great reverence and hospitality. Meanwhile the
Nabob of Arcot paid a visit to Mysore, and they all went
33 Aa
354 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
with the Yogin to his Asrama. The Nabob, being a Mussul-
man, asked: ' What power have you that you arrogate to
yourself divine honour, and what have you that you call
yourselves divine persons ? ; A Yogin answered, ' Yes, we
possess the full divine power to do all that God can do ';
and the Yogin took a stick, gave divine power to it, and
threw it in the sky. The stick was transformed into
millions of arrows, and cut down the branches of the fruit
trees to pieces, thunder began to roar in the air, and
lightning began to flash, a deep darkness spread over the
land, clouds overcast the sky, and rain began to fall in
torrents. Destruction was impending ; and in the midst of
this conflict of the elements, the voice of the Yogin was
heard to say: 'If I give more power, the world will be
in ruins/ The people implored the Yogin to calm this
universal havoc. He willed, and the tempest and the
thunder, and the rain and the wind, and the fire and all
were stopped, and the sky was as serene and calm as ever V
I do not say that the evidence here adduced would pass
muster in a Court of Law. All that strikes me in it is the
simplicity with which everything is told, and the unhesitat-
ing conviction on the part of those who relate all this. Of
course, we know that such things as the miracle here
related are impossible, but it seems almost as ^reat a miracle
in human nature that such things should ever have been
believed, and should still continue to be believed. This
belief in miracles evidently began with small beginnings,
with what Pata/?#ali describes as a foretelling of the future
by a knowledge of the present or the past. What could
be foretold might soon be accepted as the work of the
prophet who foretold it, and from prophecy even of re-4
current events, there is but a step to prophesying other;
events also, whether wished for, feared, or expected. Pro-f
phets would soon begin to outbid prophets, and the small
ball of superstition would roll on rapidly till it became the
avalanche which we know it to be, and to have been at all
times and in all countries.
1 Om, a treatise on Vedantic Raj Yoga Philosophy, by the Mahatma
Giana Guroo Yogi Sabhapati Sovarni, edited by Siris Chandra Basil,
Student, Government College, Lahore, 1880.
- -
TBUE YOGA. 355
Apart from that, however, we, must also remember that
the influence of the mind on the body and of the body on,
the mind is as yet but half explored ; a:nd in India and
among the Yogins we certainly meet, particularly in more
modern times, with many indications that hypnotic states
are produced by artificial means and interpreted as <lue to
an interference of supernatural powers in the events of
ordinary life. But all ,tihis is beyond our proving^, how-
ever interesting it may be to modern psychologists, and it
was only in order to guard against being supposed to be
un Willing even to listen! to the statements of those who
believe in Kriyayoga thajb. 1 have given so much space to
what I cannot help considering as self-deception, leading, in
many cases to a systematic deception of others.
Yoga, in its early stages, knew little or nothing of all
this. It was truly philosophical, and the chief object it had
in view was to realise the distinction between the ex-
periencer and the experienced, or as we should call it,
between] subject and object. We are told again and again
that out ordinary, though false, experience arises from our
not distinguishing between these two heterogeneous factors
of our consciousness, and Yoga, when perfect, represented
the achievement of this distinction, the separation or de-
liverance of the, subject from all that is or ever was ob-
jective in him ; the truth being that the Purusha never can
be the immediate experience!? or pereeiver of pain or
pleasure, but can only see them as being reflected on the
Manas or mind, this 'mind not being, in truth, his, the
Purusha's, but simply the working of Prakriti, the ever
objective. In enumerating the means by which this dis-
tinction can be realised, Pata//</ali always gives the prefer-
ence to efforts of thought over those of the flesh. If he
does not discard the latter altogether, we ought to remember
that only by practical experiments o.ould we possibly gain
the right to reject them altogether.
_ _
True Yogra.
But though Pata/jgrali allows all these postures and
tortures as steps towards reaching complete abstraction
and concentration of thought, he never forgets his highest
A a I
356 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
object, nay he allows that all the Siddhis, or miraculous
powers, claimed by the Yogins, are useless and may even
become hindrances (III, 37) in the career of the true aspirant
after Viveka, distinction, Moksha, freedom, and Kaivalya,
aloneness. One sometimes doubts whether all the Sutras
can really be the work of one and the same mind. Thus
Awhile in the course of Pataw#ali's speculations, we could
not but give him credit for never trying to locate the mind
or the act of perceiving and conceiving in the brain, or in
something like the pineal gland, we find him suddenly in
III, 34, claiming the muscle of the heart as the seat of the
consciousness of thought (Hridaye .Krttasaravit). While
the human body as such is always regarded as dark and as
unclean, so that the Yogin shrinks from contact with his
own, much more from contact with other bodies, we are
suddenly told (III, 46) that by Samyama or restraint,
colour, loveliness, strength and adamantine firmness may be
gained for the body.
However, the general drift of the Yoga remains always
the same, it is to serve as a Taraka (III, 54), as a ferry,
across the ocean of the world, as a light by which to
recognise the true independence of the subject from any
object; and -as a preparation for this, it is to serve as
a discipline for subduing all the passions arising from
worldly surroundings. In the last Sutra of the third book,
Patawgrali sums up what he has said by a pregnant sentence
(EH, 55) : ' Kaivalya (aloneness) is achieved when both the
mind and the Self have obtained the same purity/ This
requires some explanation. Instead of Mind, Patatfgrali
says simply Sattva, which the commentator renders by
jfifittasattva, and defines as the entering of thought (Kiit&)
into its own causal form, after the removal of the miscon-
ception of activity. This seems not quite exact, for if we
took Sattva as the Guna Sattva, we should be told that
a Guna cannot have a cause, while the Manas has a cause,
and is to be reabsorbed into its cause or causes (Ahawk&ra,
Buddhi, Prakriti), as soon as its Guwa, here the Sattva, has
become perfectly $anta or quieted.
SAJfSKARAS AND VASANAS. 357
The Three Gunas.
I have tried to explain the meaning of the three Gunas
before, but I am bound to confess that their nature is by
no means clear to me, while, unfortunately, to Indian
philosophers they seem to be so clear as to require no
explanation at all. We are always told that the thre3
Gunas are not qualities, but something substantial (Dra-
vya?u). In everything that springs from nature, and there-
fore in the Manas also, there are these three Gwi/as (IV, 15)
striving for mastery1. Sattva of the mind is goodness,
light, joy, and its purification means its not being overcome
by the other two Gunas of Ra^as, passion, or Tamas,
darkness (II, 47). From this purification springs first
Saumanasya, serenity, from this Ekagrata, concentration,
from this Inc^riyagraya, subjugation of the organs of sense,
and from this at last Atmadarsanayogyata, fitness for
beholding the Self, or in the case of the Purusha, fitness for
beholding himself, which is the same as Kaivalya, aloneness.
In the fourth and last chapter Pata/tgrali. recurs once
more to the Siddhis, perfections, natural or miraculous,
and tells us that they may be due not only to Samadhi,
meditation in its various forms, but also to birth, to drugs,
to incantations, and to heat (Tapas) or ardour of asceti-
cism, &e. By birth is meant not only birth in this or in
a future life, as a Brahman or $iidra, but also rebirth, such
as when Nandfsvara, a Brahman, became a Deva, or when
Visvamitra, from being a Kshatriya, became by penance
a Brahman. This is accounted for as being 'simply a re-
moval of hindrances, as when a husbandman, wishing to
irrigate his field, pierces the balk of earth that kept the
water from flowing in.
Samsk&ras and Vasanas.
Though, as a rule, whatever a man does has its results,
whether good or bad, the act of a Yogin, we are told, is
1 Yath4rthas trigunas tatha fcittam api trigunam, 'As the object is
/hreefold, the thought also is threefold/ The mind in fact is doubly
ilfected by the Gunas, first as'having them or being them, then as being
inged once more by the Gunas of the objects perceived (IV, 16).
358 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
neither black nor white, it" produces no fruit, because it is
performed without any desire.
As the results of actions we have Vasanas, impressions,
or Samskaras, dispositions. They show themselves either
in what remains, often dormant, and is then called memory 1,
or in the peculiar genus, of man, bird, cow, Brahman or
jS'&dra, in the locality and in the time when a man is born.
These remainders never cease, so that the animal pro-
pensities may lie dormant for a time in a Brahman, but
break out again when he enters on a canine birth. They
are not said to be without beginning, because desires and
fears can only arise when there are objects to be feared or
desired (IV, 10). Impressions are caused by perceptions,
perceptions spring from desire, desire from nescience. The
result of them all is the body with its instincts, their habitat
the mind, their support, or that on which they lean, the
same as the support of perception, i. e. the objective world.
Hence it is said that they sprout, like seeds, but that by
Knowledge and Yoga they can be annihilated also like
seeds, when roasted. In connexion with this the question is
discussed, how anything can ever be completely destroyed,
how what exists can be made not to exist, and how what
does not exist can be made to exist. I doubt, however,
whether Rajendralal Mitra can be right (III, 9> IV, 12)
when he discovers here something like the theory of ideas
or logoi in the mind of Pataw^ali, and holds that the three
ways or Adhvans in which objects present themselves to
the mind, or affect the mind, as past, present and future,
correspond to the admission of universalia ante rem, the
ideas or types, the universalia in re, the essence, and the
universalia post rem, the concepts in our minds. I confess
I hardly understand his meaning. It should never be for-
gotten tnat the mind is taken by Pata/?#ali as by itself
unconscious (not as Svabhasa, self-illuminated, IV, 18) and
as becoming conscious and intelligent for a time only by the
union between it and the Purusha, who is pure intelligence.
The Manas only receives the consciousness of perception
which comes in reality from the Purusha, so that here we
1 This kind of memory comes very near to what we call instinct,
propensity, or untaught ability.
IS TOGA NIHILISM? 359
should have the etymological, though somewhat fancifill,
definition of consciousness (con-scientia) as well as of the
Sanskrit Sara- vid, i.e. knowing along with the mind, i.e.
apprehending the impressions of the mind (Svabuddhi-
Sa?nvedanam). But though .Kitta is the work of the
Manas, not directly of the Buddhi, this ^fitta, when seen
by the seer (Purusha) on one side and tinged with what is
seen on the other, may be spoken of as the thought of the
Purusha, though it is so by a temporary misconception
only. This JTitta again is coloured by many former im-
pressions (Vasana). It may be called the highest form of
Prakriti, and as such it serves no purpose of its own, but
works really for another, the Purusha, whom it binds and
fascinates for a *time with the sole purpose, we are told, of
bringing him back to a final recognition of his true Self
(IV, 24).
Kaivalya,
If that is once achieved, the Purusha knows that he
hims3lf is not experiencer, neither knower nor actor ; and
the Manas or active mind, when beginning to feel the
approach of Kaivalya, turns more and more inward and
away from the world, so as not to interfere with the
obtainment of the highest bliss of the Purusha. Yet there
is always danger of a relapse in unguarded moments or in
the intervals of meditation. Old impressions may reassert
themselves, and the mind may lose its steadiness, unless
the old Yoga-remedies are used again and again to remove
all impediments. Then at last, perfect discrimination is re-
warded by what is called by a strange term, Dharmamegha,
the cloud of virtue, knowledge and virtue being inseparable
like cause and effect. All works and all sufferings have
now ceased, even what is to be known becomes smaller and
smaller, the very Grnias, i. e. Prakriti, having done their
work, cease troubling^ Purusha becomes himself, is in-
dependent, undisturbed f ree, and blessed.
Is Yogra Nihilism?
This is the end of the Yoga-philosophy, and no wonder
that it should have been mistaken for complete nihilism by
360 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Cousin and others. But first of all, the play of Prakriti,-
though it has ceased for our Purusha, who has gained true
knowledge, is supposed to be going on for ever for the
benefit of other innumerable Purushas ; and as long as?
there are any spectators, the spectacle of Prakrit! will
never cease. Secondly, the Purusha, though freed from
iUusion, is -not thereby annihilated. He is himself, apart
from nature, and it is possible, though it is not distinctly '
stated, that the Purusha in his aloneness may continue his
life, like the Givanmukta of the Vedanta, maintaining his
freedom among a crowd of slaves, without any fear or hope
of another Jife, unchanged himself in this ever-changing
Samsara. However, we need not attempt to supply what
Pataw^ali himself has passed over in silence. The final
goal whether of the Yoga, or of the Sa/mkhya, nay even of
the Vedanta and of Buddhism, always defies description.
Nirvana in its highest sense is a name and a thought, but
nothing can be predicated of it. It is ' what no eye has
seen and what has not entered into the mind of man/ We
know that it is ; but no one can say what it is, and !>hose
who attempt to do so are apt to reduce it to a mere
phantasmagoria or to a nothing.
Though I hope that the foregoing sketch may give
a correct idea of the general tendency of the Yoga-
philosophy, I know but too well that there are several
points which require further elucidation, and on which
even native expositors hold different opinions. What we
must guard against in all these studies is rejecting as
absurd whatever we cannot understand at once, or what to
us seems fanciful or irrational. . I know from iny own
experience how often what seemed to me for a long time
unmeaning, nay absurd^ Disclosed after a time a far deeper
meaning than I should .ever have expected.
The great multitude of technical tertaas, though it may be
bewildering to us, could not be entirely suppressed, because
it helps to show through how long and continuous a
development these Indian systems of thought must have
passed, before any attempt was made, as it was by Pataw-
<yali and others, to reduce them to systematic order. There
remains with me a strong conviction that Indian philoso-
IS TOGA NIHILISM? 361
phers are honest in their reasonings, and never use empty
words. But there remains much to be done, and I can only
hope that if others follow in my footsteps, they will in time
make these old bones to live again. These ancient sages
should become fellow-workers and fellow -explorers with
ourselves in unknown continents of thought, and we ought
not to be afraid to follow in their track. They alway^
have the courage of their convictions, they shrink from no
consequences if they follow inevitably from their own
premisses; This is the reason why I doubt whether the
aamissiorr of an Isvara or lord by Patawgali, in contra-
distinction to Kapila who denies that there are any argu-
ments in support of such a being, should be put down as
a mere economy or as an accommodation to popular opinion.
Indian philosophers are truthful, and Patatfgrali (II, 36) says
in so many words that truth is better than sacrifice l. They
may err, as Plato has erred and even Kant, but they are
not decepti deceptores, they do not deceive or persuade
themselves, nor do they try to deceive others.
1 Satyapratishtoayam kriyaphalasrayatvat.
OdY BI
id van bits c8gaino&B9i iiedd fii desnorl eus aiedq
?)ns <sfiob ad oi ilonm aniBinoi sierfd duS .ebiow
ii wollol eiQifdo ii d£dd oqorf.
KiofoflB : /if od sailed bio aaadd a^Lem
/[low-woliol emoood bli/odg
i nworahm ni aevloaiuo
CHAPTEE VIII. o,t brail* od od don
on mo1/} vl; to e^Biuoo add ev.Bff.
NTAYA AND VAISESHIE^ ^ 8aon9ITp98flOC>
>rdT .aeeaimaiq
Relation between Ny&ya and MbL^.iQ ^I^urnbj^
-jjjgi;-. [j&JT p| noidomdaib
WHILE in the systems hitherto examined, ^ pfq^Acularlyrfaj
the Ved^nta, Samkhya, and Yoga, there runa a strong i
religious and even poetical vein, ye now ; corhe )bo two
systems, Nyaya and Vaiseshika, which ar^ ve»y dry and
unimaginative, and much more like what we mean by
scholastic systems of philosophy, businesslike expositions
of what can be known, either of the world which surrounds
us or of the world within, that is, of our faculties or powers
of perceiving, conceiving, or reasoning on one side, $rid the
objects which they present to us, on the other.
It should be remembered that, like the Samkhya and
Yoga, and to a certain extent like the Pflrva and Uttara-
Mim&rasa, the Ny&ya and Vaiseshika also have by the
Hindus themselves been treated as forming but one disci-
pline. We possess indeed a separate body of Ny&ya-Sfttras
and another of Vaiseshika-Sfttras, and these with their
reputed auth6rs, Gotania and KaTiada, have long been
accepted as the original sources whence these two streams
of toe ancient philosophy of India proceeded. But we
know now that the literary style which sprang up naturally
in what I called the Sfttra-period, th3 period to which the
first attempts at a written, in place of a purely mnemonic,
literature may have to be ascribed, was by no means
restricted to that ancient period, but continued to be so well
imitated in later times that we find it used with great
success not only in the S&mkhya-Sfttras, which are later
than M&dhava (1350 A.D.), but in more modern compositions
also. It shoula always be borne in mind that the Sfttras
ascribed to Gotama and KaTi&da presuppose a long previous
EELATTQN BETWEEN NYAYA AND VALSESHIKA. 363
development of philosophical thought, and instead of
regarding the' two as two independent streams, it seems
far more likely that there existed at first an as yet un-
differentiated body of half philosophical half popular
thought^ bearing on things that can be known, the Padar-
thas, i.e. omne scibile, and on the means of acquiring such
knowledge, from which at a later time, according to the
preponderance of either the one or the other subject, the
two systems of Yaiseshika and Nyaya branched off. These
two systems shared of course many things in common, and
hence we can well understand that at. a later time they
should have been drawn together again and treated as one,
as we see in /Sivaditya's Saptapadarthi (about 1400 A.D.), in
the Bhasha-Pari&Meda, with its commentary the Muktavali,
in the Tarkasamgraha, the Tarkakauinudi, the Tarkamrita,
&c. For practical purposes it is certainly preferable that
we should follow their example and thus avoid the necessity
of discussing the same subjects twice over. There may
have been an old Tarka, very like our Tarkasamgraha, the
one before the bifurcation of the old system of Anvikshiki,
the other after the confluence of the two. But these are as
yet conjectures only, and may have to remain mere con-
jectures always, so that, in the present state of our know-
ledge, and depending, as we have to do, chiefly on the
existing Sutras as the authorities recognised in India itself,
we must not attempt a historical treatment, but treat each
system by itself in spite of unavoidable repetitions.
A very zealous native scholar, Mahadeo Rajaram Bodas,
in the Introduction to his edition of the Tarkasamgraha,
has indeed promised to give us some kind of history of the
Ny&ya-philosophy in India. But unfortunately that period
in the historical development of the Nyaya which is of
greatest interest to ourselves, namely that which preceded
the composition of the Ny&ya-Sutras, had by him also to
be left a blank, for the simple reason that nothing is known
of Ny&ya before Gotamit. The i later periods, however,
have been extremely well treated by Mr. feodas, and I may
refer my readers to him for the best information' on the
subject. Mr. Bodas places ths Sfttras of Qofcama and
Ka?iada in the fifth or fourth cent. B. c. ; and he expresses
364 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
a belief that the Vaiseshika, nay even the Samkhya, as
systems of thought, were anterior to Buddha, without how-
ever adducing any new or certain proofs.
MgaAg*.
Dates are the weak points in the literary history of
India, and, in the present state of our studies, any date,
however late, should be welcome. In former years to assign
the Kapila-Sutras to the fourteenth or even fifteenth
century A.D., would have seemed downright heresy. Was
not K&lid£sa himself assigned to a period long before the
beginning of our era? It seems now generally accepted
that Kalidasa really belonged to the sixth century A.D., and
this date of Kalidasa may help us to a date for the Sfttras
of Gotama, valuable to us, though it may be despised by
those who imagine that the value of Sanskrit literature
depends chiefly on its supposed remote antiquity. I have
pointed out 1 that, according to native interpreters, Kalidasa
alluded to the logician Dignaga in a verse of 'his Megha-
duta2. We may suppose therefore that Dignaga was
considered a contemporary of Kalidasa. Now Dign&ga is
said by Va&aspati Misra, in his Nyaya- v&rttika-tatparya-
tfika, to have interpreted the Nyaya aphorisms of Gotarna
in a heterodox or Buddhist sense, while Uddyotakara wrote
his commentary to refute his interpretation and to restore
that of Pakshilasvamin. If Va/caspati Misra is right, we
should be allowed to place Dignaga in the sixth century,
and assign the same or rather an earlier date to the Sutras
of Gotama, as explained by him and other Nyaya philo-
sophers. So late a date may not seem to be worth much,
still I think it is worth having. Several other dates may
be fixed by means of that of Dignaga as I tried to show in
the passage quoted above (India, pp. 307 seq.).
A more comprehensive study of Buddhist literature may
possibly shed some more light on the chronology of the
later literature of the Brahmans, if I am right in supposing
that in the beginning the followers of Buddha broke by no
1 India, p. 307.
2 See also Prof. Satis Chandra Vidyablbrushana in Journal of Buddhist
Text Society, IV, parts iii, and iv, p. 16.
365
means so entirely, as has generally been supposed, with the
literary traditions of the Brahmans. It is quite intelligible
^rhy among the various systems of Hindu philosophy the
Buddhists should have paid little attention to the two
Mimamsas, concerned as they both were with the Veda,
an authority which the Buddhists had rejected. But there
was no reason why the Buddhists should forswear the
study of either the Nyaya or Vaiseshika systems, or even
the Samkhya system, though making their reserves on
certain points, such as the existence of an Isvara, which
was admitted by the Nyayas, but% denied by Buddha. We
know that at the court of Harsha, Brahmans, Bauddhas,
and Crainas were equally welcome (India, pp. 307 seq.).
We know from Chinese travellers such as Hiouen-thsang
that Vasubandha, for instance, before he became a Buddhist,
had read with his master, Vinayabhadra or Samghabhadra l,
not only the books of the eighteen schools which were
Buddhist, but also the six Tirthya philosophies, clearly
meant for the six Brahmanic systems of philosophy. This
Vasubandha, as a very old. man, was actually the teacher
of Hiouen-thsang, who travelled in India from 629 to
648 A.D. Therefore in Vasubandha's time all the six
systems of Indian philosophy must have been in existence,
in the form of Sutras or Karikas. For we possess, in one
case at least, a commentary by Pakshila-svamin or Vatsya-
yana on the Nyaya-SMras, the same as those which we
possess, and we know that the same Sutras were explained
afterwards by Dignaga, the Buddhist. This Buddhist
commentary was attacked by Uddyotakara, a Brahman, of
the sixth century, while in the beginning of the seventh
century Dharmakirtti, a Buddhist, is said to have defended
Dignaga2 and to have criticised Uddyotakara's Nyaya-
varttika. In the ninth century Dharmottara, a Buddhist,
defended Dharmakirtti's and indirectly Dignaga's inter-
pretation of the Nyaya-Sfttras, and it was not till the tenth
1 See also Journal of Buddhist Text Society, 1896, p. 16.
2 Though none of Dignaga's writings have as yet been discovered, Sri
Sarat Chandra states that there is in the library of the Grand Lama
a Tibetan translation of his Nyaya-samu&fcaya (Journal of Buddhist Text
Society, part iii, 1896, p. 17).
366 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
century that Va/i'aspati Misra finally re-established the
Br&hmanie view of the Nyaya in his Nyaya- varttika-
tatparya-ilka. This would coincide with *the period of
the Brahmanfe reaction and the general collapse of Bud-
dhism in India, and thus place before us an intelligible
progress in the study of the .Nyaya both by Brahmans and
Buddhists from the sixth to the tenth century, while the
revival of the Nyaya dates from Gamgesa Upadhyaya who
lived in the fourteenth century at Mithila.
Thanks to the labours of Sarat Chandra Das and Satis
Chandra YidyabhftshaTia, we have lately gained access to
some of the Sfttras of the Buddhist schools of philosophy,
which are full of interest. Of the four great schools of
the Buddhists, the Madhyamika, YogaMra, Sautrantika,
and Vaibhashika, the first or Madhyamika now lies before
us in the Madhyamika Vritti by jfiTandra-Kirtti, and there
is every hope that other philosophical treatises also, for
instance, the Nyaya-samu&/caya, may be made 4ccessible to
us by the labours of these indefatigable scholars.
The S&tras or rather K&rikas of the Madhyamika .school
must, of course, be distinguished from the system of thought
which they are meant to explain. The characteristic feature
of that system is the $unya-vada, or nihilism, pure and
simple. As such it is referred to and refuted in Gotama's
Nyaya- Sutras IV, 37 to 40, in Kapila;s Samkhya-Sutras I,
43, 44, in Badarayawa's Vedanta-Sutras II, % 28, where
$amkara distinctly refers the doctrine- that We know no
objects, but only our perceptions of them, tc> Sugata or
Buddha. The author or the Pa/z&adasi quotes tli& Madhya-
mikas by name as the teachers of universal nihilism (Sarvam
.
If Nagargruna was really ttye author of the Madhyamika-
Sfttras, as we now possess tbfem, they would carry us backi
to about the first century A.!\, and we should have in his'
Karikas, as explained by -STandra-KiVtti, the oldest docu-
ment of systematic philosophy in India, which will require
very careful examination. Though it is different, no doubt,
from all the six systems, it nevertheless shares in common
with them many of the ideas and even technical terms. If
it teaches the $flnyatva or emptiness of t^he world, this after
DIGNAGA.
30JIH1
367
all is not very different from the Vedantic Avidya, and the
Samkhya Aviveka, andl if nit teaches the Pratityatva of
everything, that need be no more than the dependence of
everything 'to something else1. The <fistinetion made by
the Madhywiikas between what is Paramarthika, real in
the highest sense, and Sam vritika, veiled, is much the same
as the distinction of the later Ved&nta between what 'i*
really real* (Param&rthataA), and what is Vyavaharika,
phenomena! or the result of Maya, sometimes called
Samvrity the veil that covers the NirgUTia Brahman or
the Tad,'<tv^hich again is not very different from what the
;BuMt|fetk^ Vacant originally by /Sftnya, empty, for they
Hold that even the /Sftnya is not altogether nothing. Many
o£ the ^luiical terms used by the M&dhyamikas are the
same a»s ttose with which we are acquainted in the other
systems. Bu&kha, pain, for instance, is divided A into
^Ldhyatinik^- intrinsic, Adhibhautika, extrinsic, and Adhi-
d&lvika>! divine or supernatural. We meet with the five
perceptions of colour, taste, smell, touch, and sound, and
five causes, light, water, earth, air, and ether,
sw4 the well-known idea that Manas, mind,
to the Buddhists
is that>t6 thrill neither the objects of sense nor the sensations
^iD&to an -^iderlying substance or reality.
" W%^OWe ft;igi*eat debt of gratitude to both Sarat Chandra
Das and /Sri Satis Chandra Vidy&bhushami for their labours
in Tib^fc, ^tnd we look forward to many valuable contribu-
tions from their pen/ more particularly for retranslations
from Tibetan.
Whether Buddhist philosophy shares more in common
with the Sirakhya than with the Ny ay a and Vaiseshika
seems to me as doubtful as ever. The fundamental position
of the Samkhya, as Satkaryavada, is the very opposite of
the Buddhist view of the world.
-rhiB ai d -bio. R.r
1 PratTtya in Pratitya-samutpada and similar words may best be
rendered by depea4«nt or conditioned. A son, for instance, is a son,
Pitaram Pratitya, dependent on a father, and a father is impossible
without assort*. I$,!the sama way everything is dependent on
. :
w ni a>!
368 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Bibliography.
It was in 1852 that I published my first contributions
to a study of Indian philosophy in the Zeitschrift der Deut-
schen Morgenld^dischen Gesellschaft. These papers did not
extend, however, beyond the Vaiseshika and Nyaya-philo-
sophy as treated in the Tarkasamgraha, and more urgent
occupations connected with the edition of the Rig-veda
prevented me; at the time from finishing what I had pre-
pared for publication on the other systems of Indian
philosophy. Though, of course, much new and important
material has come to light in the meantime, particularly
through the publications of the Vaiseshika-Sutras in the
Sibliotheca Indica, through the complete translation of
them' by A. E. Gough, 1873, an(^ through the comprehen-
sive researches of European scholars, such as Professoirs
Deussen and Garbe, I found that there was not much to alter
in my old account of Gotama's and Kawada's philosophies,
as given in the German Oriental Journal, and in my paper
on Indian Logic contributed to the late Archbishop Thom-
son's Laws of Thought. Indian philosophy has this great
advantage that each tenet is laid down in, the Sutras with
the utmost precision, so that there can be little doubt as
to what KaTiada or Gotama thought about the nature of
the soul, the reality of human knowledge, the relation
between cause and effect, the meaning of creation, and the
relation between God or the Supreme Being and man.
Thus it may be understood why even papers published so
long ago as 1824, such as J. Colebrooke's papers on the
Nyaya and Vaiseshika and the other systems of Indian
philosophy, may still be recommended to all who want
trustworthy information on Indian philosophy. These
essays have sometimes been called antiquated, but there
is a great difference between what is old and what is anti-
quated. The difficulty in giving an account of these
systems for the benefit of European readers consists far
more in deciding what may be safely omitted, so as to
bring out the salient points of each system, than in re-
capitulating all their tenets.
Books in which the Nyaya and Vaiseshika-systems may
NYAYA-PHILOSOPHY. 369
be studied by those who are unacquainted with Sanskrit
are, besides the papers of Colebrooke : —
Ballantyne, The Aphorisms of the Ny&ya-Philosophy
by Gautama. Sanskrit and English, Allahabad, 1 850. (Gau~
tarna is the same as Gotama, only that by a tacit agreement
Gotama has generally been used as the name of the philo-
sopher, Gautama as that of Buddha, both belonging, it
would seem, to the family of the Gautamas or Gotamas,
the MSS. varying with regard to the vowel.)
A.. E. Gough, The Vaiseshika Aphorisms of Kauada,
translated, Benares, 1873.
Manilal Nabubhai Dvivedi, The Tarka-Kaumudt, being
an introduction to fch* principles of the Vaiseshika and
Nyaya-philosophies by Laugaksbi Bh&skara, Bombay, 1886.
This is the same author to whom we owe a valuable edition
of the Yogas*ara-sa/mgraha.
Windisch, Uber das Nyaya-bhashya, Leipzig, s. a.
Kesava $astri, The Nyaya-darsana with the commentary
of Vatsyayana, in the Pundit, 1877, pp. 60, 109, 311, 363
(incomplete) ; see also Bibliothtca Indica.
Mahadeo Rajaram Bodas, The Tarkasamgraha of Annam-
bha^a, with the author's Dipika and Govardhana's Nyaya-
bodbini, ^prepared by the late Rao Bahadur Yasavanta
Vasadeo Athalya, and published with critical and explana-
tory notes, Bombay, 1897. This book reached me after
these chapters on the Nyaya and Vaiseshika were written,
but not too late to enable me to profit by several of his
explanations and criticisms, before they were printed.
Though Ny£ya has always been translated by logic, we
must not imagine that the Nyaya-Sutras are anything like
our treatises on formal logic. There is, no doubt, a greater
amount of space allowed to logical questions in these than
in any of the other systems of Indian philosophy , but
originally the name of Nyaya would have been quite as
applicable to the Piirva-Miraamsa, which is actually called
Nyaya in such works, for instance, as Sayana's Nyaya-
maia-vistara, published by Goldst ticker, Nor is logic
the sole or chief end of Gotama's philosophy. Its chief
24 Bb
370 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
end, like thai of the other Darsanas, is salvation, the
summum bonum which is promised to all. This summum
bonum is called by Gotama NiAsreyasa, literally that which
has nothing better, the non plus ultra of blessedness. This
blessedness, acco^-ding to the ancient commentator. Vatsy&-
yana, is described as consisting in renunciation with regard
tp all the pleasures of this life, and in the non-acceptance
of, or indifference to any rewards in the life to come ; as
being in fact what Brahman is, without fear, without
desire, without decay, and without death. Even this
Brahmahood must not be an object of desire, for such
desire would at once produce a kind of bondage, and
prevent that perfect freedom from all fear or hope, which
is to follow by itself, but should never be yearned for.
This perfect state of freedom, or resignation, can, according
to Gotama, be realised in one way only, namely, by know-
ledge, and in this case, by a knowledge of the sixteen great
topics of the Nyaya-philosophy
Summum Bonum.
In this respect all the six systems of philosophy are
alike, they always promise to their followers or their
believers the attainment of the highest bliss that can be
obtained by man. The approaches leading to that bliss
vary, and the character also of the promised bliss is not
always the same ; yet in each of the six systems philosophy
is recommended r^ot, as with us, for the sake of knowledge,
but for the highest purpose that man can strive after in
this life, that is, his own salvation.
We saw that the Vedanta recognised true salvation or
Moksha in the knowledge of Brahman, which knowledge
is tantamount to identity with Brahman. This Brahman
or God is, as the Upariishads already declare, invisible, and
far beyond the reach of the ordinary faculties of our mind.
But he can be learnt from revelation as contained in the
Veda, and as $vetaketu was taught ' Tat tvam asi,' ' Thou
art it,1 every Vedantist is to learn in the end the same
lesson, and to realise his identity with Brahman, as the
fulfilment of all desires, and the surcease of all suffering
(DuAkhanta).
SUMMUM BONUM. 371
The end of all suffering is likewise the- object of the
Samkhya-philosophy, though it is to be reached by a dif-
ferent road. Kapila, being a dualist, admits an objective
substratum by the side of a subjective spirit or rather
spirits, and he sees the cause of all suffering in the spirits'
identifying themselves with what is purely objective or
material. He therefore recognises the tnie means of
destroying all bondage and regaining perfect freedom of
the spirit in our distinguishing clearly between spirit and
matter, between subject and object, between Purusha and
Prakriti. Kaivalya, or aloneness, is the right name for
that highest state of bliss which is promised to us by the
Samkhya-philosophy.
The Yoga-philosophy holds much the same view of the
soul recovering its freedom, .but it insists strongly on
certain spiritual exercises by which the soul may best
obtain and maintain peace and quietness, and thus free
itself effectually from the illusions and sufferings of life.
It also lays great stress on devotion to a Spirit, supreme
among all the other spirits, whose very existence, according
to Kapila, cannot be established by any of the recognised
means of real knowledge, the Pramawas.
Of the two Mlmawsas we have seen already that the
Brahma-Mtma/msa or the Vedanta recognises salvation as
due to knowledge of the Brahman, which knowledge pro-
duces at once the recognition of oneself as in reality Brah-
man (Brahmavid Brahma eva bhavati, 'He who knows
Brahman is Brahman indeed'). It is curious to observe
tliat, while the Samkhya insists on a distinction between
Purushas, the subjects, and Prakriti, all that is objective,
as the only means of final beatitude, the Vedanta on the
contrary postulates the surrendering of all distinction be-
tween the Self and the world, and between the Self and
Brahman as the right means of Moksha. The roads
are different, but the point reached at last is much tjhe
same.
The other Mimamsa, that of Craimini, diverges widely
from that of Badarayawa. It lays its chief stress on works
(Karman) and their right performance, and holds that
salvation may be obtained through the performance of
B b 2
372 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
such works, if only they are performed without any deuire
of rewards, whether on earth or in heaven.
Lastly, the Nyaya and Yaiseshika systems, though they
also aim at salvation, are satisfied with pointing out the
means of it as consisting in correct knowledge:, such as can
only be obtained from a clear apprehension of the sixteen
topics treated by Gotama, or the six or seven categories
put forward by Ka/n&da. These two philosophies, agreeing
as they do among themselves, seem to me to differ very
characteristically from all the others in so far as thev
admit of nothing invisible or transcendent (Avyakta),
whether corresponding to Brahman or to Prakriti. They
are satisfied with teaching that the soul is different from
the body, and they think that, if this belief in the body
as our own is once surrendered, our sufferings, which
always reach us through the body, will cease by them-
selves.
But while we can understand that each of the six
systems of Indian philosophy may succeed in removing
pain, it is very difficult to see in what that actual nappi-
ness was supposed to consist which remained after that
removal.
The Vedarita speaks of Ananda, or bliss, that resides in
the highest Brahman ; but the happiness to be enjoyed by
the souls near the throne of Brahman, and in a' kind of
paradise, is not considered as final, but is assigned to
a lower class only. That paradise has no attraction, and
would give no real satisfaction to those who have reached
the knowledge of the Highest Brahman. Their blissful
knowledge is described as oneness with Braliman, but no
details are added. The bliss held out by the Samkhyas
also is very vague and indefinite. It can arise only from
the Purusha himself, if left entirely to himself, far from all
the illusions and disturbances arising from objective nature,
or the works of Prakriti.
Lastly, the Apavarga (bliss) of the Ny&ya and Vaise-
shika systems seems entirely negative, and produced simply
by the removal of false knowledge. Even the different
names given to the supreme bliss promised by each system
of philosophy tell us very little. Mukti and Moksha mean
MEANS OP SALVATION. 373
deliverance, Kaivalya, isolation or detachment, Nitareyasa,
non plus ultra, Amrita, immortality, Apavarga, delivery.
Nor does the well-known Buddhist term Nirvana help us
much. We know indeed from PaTiini (VIII, 3, 50) that
the word was pre-Buddhistic and existed in his time. He
tells us that, if used in the sense of ' blown out/ the right
form would be Nirvata/^, such as Nirvato vataA, ' the wind
has ceased to blow/ but Nirva/fto *gr"dk, 'the fire is gone
out/ We cannot prove, however, that NirvaTia was used
as the technical term for the summum bonum in PaTiini's
time, and it does not seem to occur in the classical Upani-
shads. Its occurring as the title of one of the modern
[Jpanishads makes it all the more likely that it was
borrowed there from Buddhistic sources. There is one
passage only, in the shorter text of the Maitreya * Upani-
shad where Nirvar^am anusasanam occurs, possibly meant
for Nirvananusasanam, the teaching of NirvaTia. What
should be clearly understood is that in the early Buddhistic
writings also, Nirvana does not yet mean a complete blow-
ing oat of the individual soul, but rather the blowing out
and subsiding of all human passions and the peace and
quietness which result from it. The meaning of complete
annihilation was a later and purely philosophical meaning
attached to Nirvana, and no one certainly could form an
idea of what that NirvaTia was meant to be in the Buddhist
Nihilistic or $ftnyata-philosophy, I doubt even whether
the Upanishads could have given us a description of what
they conceived their highest Mukti or perfect freedom to
be. In fact they confess themselves (Taitt. Up. II, 4, i) that
' all speech turns away from the bliss of Brahman, unable
to reach it V an(i when language fails, thought is not likely
to fare better.
Means of Salvation.
Turning now to the means by which the Nyaya-philo-
sophy undertakes to secure the attainment of the summum
1 Sacred Books* of the East, XV, p. 61.
2 See a very learned article on Nirvana by Professor Satis Chandra
Vidyabhushana» in the Journal of the Buddhist Text Society, VI,
part i, p. 33.
374 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
bonum or Apavarga, we find them enumerated in the
following list : —
The Sixteen Topics or Padarthas.
(j) Prama/n/a, raeans of knowledge; (2) Prameya, objects
of knowledge ; (3) Samsaya, doubt ; (4) Prayo#ana, pur-
pose ; (5). Dr/shianta, instance ; (6) SiddMnta, established
truth; (7) Avayava, premisses; (8) Tarka, reasoning; (9)
Nirnaya, conclusion ; ( 10) Vada, argumentation ; (i i) Galpa,
sophistry; (12) VitaraZa, wrangling, cavilling; (13) Hetva-
bhasa, fallacies; (14) IfAala, quibbles; (15) (?ati, false
analogies; (16) Nigrahasthana, unfitness for arguing.
This may seem a very strange list of the topics to be
treated by any philosophy, particularly by one that claims
. the title of Nyaya or logic. It is clear that in reality
the chapters on Pramawa or means of knowledge, and
Prameya. objects of knowledge, comprehend the whole of
philosophy.
Means of Knowledge.
The four PramaTias, according to Gotama, are Pratyaksha,
sensuous perception, Anumaiia, inference, Upamana, com-
parison, and $abda, word.
Perception1 comes first, because inference can only begin
to do its work after perception has prepared the way, and
has supplied the material to which inference can be applied.
Comparison is no more than a subordinate kind of inference,
while the /Sabda or the word, particularly that of the Veda,
depends again, as we should say, on a previous inference
by which the authority of the word, more particularly the
revealed word, has first been established. Imperfect as this
analysis of our instruments of knowledge may seem, it
seems to me highly Creditable to Indian philosophers that
they should have understood the necessity of such an
analysis on the very threshold of any system of philosophy.
How^many misunderstandings might have been avoided if
all philosophers had recognised the necessity of such a#
introductory chapter. If we must depend for all our know-
ledge, first on our senses, then on our combinatory and
reasoning faculties, the question whether revelation falls
OBJECTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 375
under the one or the other, or whether it can claim an*
independent authority, can far more easily be settled
than if such questions are not asked in limine, but turn
up casually whenever transcendental problems come to be
treated.
Objects of Knowledge.
The objects of knowledge, as given by the Nyaya, com-
prehend omne scibile, such as body, soul, organs of sense,
qualities, cognition, mind, will, fault, death, enjoyment, pain,
and final freedom. These objects are afterwards discussed
singly, but have of course little to do with logic. Doubt
and purpose mark the first steps towards philosophical dis-
cussion, instances and established ' truths s apply materials,
while premisses and reasoning lead on to the conclusion
which disputants wish to reach. From Nos. 10 to 16, we
have rules for dialectic rather than for logic. We are taught
how to meet the artifices of our antagonists in a long argu-
mentation, how to avoid or to resist sophistry, wrangling,
fallacies, quibbles, false analogies, and downright mis-
statements, in fact, how to defend^ truth against unfair
antagonists.
If from our point-ef^yiew we deny the name of logic to
such problems, we should be perfectly justified, though
a glance at the history of Greek philosophy would show
us that, before logic became an independent branch of
philosophy it was likewise mixed up with dialectic and
with questions of some more special interest, the treatment
of wrhich led gradually to the elaboration of general rules
of thought, applicable to all reasoning, whatever its subject
may be.
It is quite clear that these sixteen topics should on no
account be rendered, as they mostly have been, by the six-
teen categories. Categories are the praedicabilia, or
whatever can be predicated, and however much the mean-
ing of this term may have been varied by European philo-
sophers, it could never have been so far extended as to
include wrangling, fallacies, quibbles and all the rest. We
shall see that the six 'or seven Padarthas o£ the Vaise-
shikas correspond far more nearly to the categories of the
376 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Aristotelian and afterwards of European philosophy in
general
PadArth*. Object.
Nothing shows so well the philosophical character of
the Sanskrit language as this very word Padartha, which
has been translated by category. It means in ordinary
Sanskrit simply a thing, but literally it meant Irtha, the
meaning, the object, Pada, of a word. What we should
call objects of thought, they called far more truly objects
of words, thus showing that from the earliest times they
understood that no thought was possible except in a word,
and that the objects of our knowledge became possible
only after they had been named. Their language passed
through an opposite process to that of Latin. Latin called
every kind of knowledge or all known things gnomina,
from g)nosco, to know ; but after a time, and after the
initial g had been dropped, as we drop it involuntarily in
gnat, their gnomiifia became nomina, and were then sup-
posed to be something different from the old and forgotten
gnomina ; they became nomina, i. e. mere names.
Six Fadfcrthas of Vaiieshika.
According to the Vaiseshikas, we have six Padarthas,
i. e. six general meanings, categories or predicates, to which
all words i.e. all things can be referred. All known things
must be either substances (9), qualities (24), or motions,
the last meaning, however, more than mere local move-
ment, so as to correvspond in fact to our activity or even
to our becoming (Werden). Knowledge (Buddhi) is here
treated as one of the qualities of the soul, which itself is
one of the substances, so that many things which with us
belong to psychology and logic, are treated by the v^aise-
shikas under this head.
The next two, the general and the particular, com-
prehend what is shared in common by many objects, and
what is peculiar to one, and thus distinguishes it from all
others.
Samavaya or intimate connection is a very useful name
for a, connection between things which cannot exist one
MADHAVA'S ACCOUNT OF NYAYA. 377
without the other, such as cause and effect, parts and the
whole, and the like. It comes very near to the Avina-
bhava, i.e. the Not- without-being, and should be carefully
distinguished from mere conjunction or succession.
The seventh category, Abhava, or negation, was added,
it would seem, at a later time, and can be applied to previous,
to present or to subsequent non-existence, or even to absolute
Abhava.
Hadhava's Account of Nyaya.
In order to see what, in the eyes of native scholars, the
Nyaya-philosophy was meant to achieve, it may be useful
to look at an account of it given by the great Madhava-
fcarya in his Sarvadarsana-samgraha, the compendium of
all the systems of philosophy. * The Nyaya-sastra/ he says,
'consists of five books, and each book contains two daily
portions or Ahnikas. In the first Ahnika of the first book
the venerable Gotama discusses the definitions of nine
subjects, beginning with "proof" (PramaTia), and in the
second those of the remaining seven, beginning with dis-
cussion (Vada). In the first daily portion of the second
book he examines doubt (8), discusses the four kinds of
proof, and refutes all objections that could be made against'
their being considered as instruments of right knowledge ;
and in the second he shows that " presumption " and other
PramaTias are really included in the four kinds of " proof "
already given. In the first daily portion of the third book
he examines the soul, the body, the senses, and their
objects ; in the second, " understanding " (Buddhi) and mind
(Manas). In the first daily portion of the fourth book he
examines activity (Pravr^tti), faults (Dosha), transmigra-
tion (Pretyabhava), fruit or reward (Phala), pain (DuAkha),
and final liberation (Apavarga) ; in the second he investi-
gates the truth as to the causes of the " faults," and also
the subject of "wholes" and "parts." In the first daily
portion of the fifth book he discusses the various kinds of
futility (frati), and in the second the various kinds of
objectionable proceedings (Nigrahasthana) '
After having held out in the first Sfttra the promise of
eternal salvation to all who studv his philosophy properly,
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Gotama proceeds at once to a description of the steps by
which the promised NiAsreyasa, or highest happiness, is to
be attained, namely by the successive annihilation of false
knowledge, of faults, of activity, and, in consequence, of
birth and suffering. When the last or suffering has been
annihilated there follows ipso facto freedom, or blessedness
(Apavarga), literally abstersion or purification. This pro-
cess reminds us strongly of some of the links in the Pa£i/c&a
Samuppada of the Buddhists. This is generally translated
by Chain of Causation, and was meant to sum up the causes
of existence or of misery, the twelve Nidanas. It really
means origin resting on something else. The first step is
Avidya or that cosmic Nescience which was so fully elabo-
rated in the Vedanta-philosophy. According to the Bud-
dhists there follow on Avidy& the Samkharas1, all the
varieties 'of existence; on these Vigrvv ana, sensation ; on this
Namanlpa, names and 'forms; on these the Shad&yatana,
the six organs of perception. Then follow in succession
Sparsa, contact, Vedan&, sensation, Trislma, desire, Upa-
dana, attachment, Bhava, state of existence, Cr&ti, birth,
(raramaraTia, decay and death, $oka, sorrow, Parideva,
lamentation, DuAkha, suffering, Daurmanasya, grief, and
Upaysisa, despair2.
This chain of successive states proclaimed by Buddha
has formed the subject of ever so many commentaries, none
of which seems quite satisfactory. The chain of Gotaina
is shorter than that of Gautama, but the general likeness
can hardly be mistaken. Who was the earlier of the two,
Gotama or Gautama, is still a contested question, but what-
ever the age of our Sutras (the sixteen topics) may be,
a Nyaya-philosophy existed clearly before the rise of Bud-
dhism.
Z. Praxnana.
Gotama proceeds next to examine each of the sixteen
topics.
The first topic or Padartha is Pramarta, which is said to
consist of four kinds, all being means or measures of know-
1 Cf. Garbe, SAwkhya-Philosophie, p. 269 seq.
2 Cf. Childers, s.v.
INlnlRBNCE OR ANUMANA. 379
ledge. They are in the Ny&ya as in the Vaiseshika, (i)
Pratyaksha, sense-perception ; (2) Anumana, inference ; (3)
Upamana, comparison ; and (4) Sabda, word.
Perception or Pratyaksha.
1. Perception (Pratyaksha) is explained as knowledge
produced by actual contact between an organ of sense and
its corresponding object, this object being supposed to be
real. How a mere passive impression, supposing the con-
tiguity of the organs of sense with outward objects had
once been established, can be changed into a sensation or
into a presentation (Vorstellung), or what used to be
called a material idea, is a question not even asked by
Gotama.
Inference or Anumana.
2. Inference (Anumana), preceded by perception, is
described as of three kinds, Purvavat, proceeding from
what was before, i.e. <an antecedent; $eshavat, proceeding
from, what was after, i.e. a consequent; and Samanyato
Drish^a, proceeding from what is constantly seen together.
Though, as we saw, Jfarvaka rejects, every kind of Anu-
mana or inference, he., as Va/caspati* Misra remarks very
s acutely (Karika 5), in attacking his antagonists for their
mistaken faith in inference, does really himself rely on
inference, without which he could not so much as sur-
mise that his antagonists held erroneous opinions, such
erroneous opinions being never brought into contact with
his organs of sense, but being supposed to exist on the
strength of Anumana.
The meaning of the three kinds of inference differs Con-
siderably according to different commentators. It is
generally explained that a Purvavat, preceded by or
possessed of a prius, refers to the mutual relation between
a sign and what is signified by it, so that the observation
of the sign leads to the observation or rather inference of
what is universally .associated with it or marked by it.
This unconditional association is afterwards treated under
the name of Vyapti, literally pervasion of one thing by
another. Examples will make this clearer. When we see
380 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
a river rising we infer as its Purva or prius that it has*
rained. When we see that the ants carry their eggs, or
that the peacocks are screaming, we infer as the $esha or
posterior that it will rain (Nyaya S. II, 5, 37). It is true
that in all these cases the reason given for an inference
may, as it is called, wander away, that is, rnay prove too
much or too little. In that case the fault arises from the
conditioned character of the Vy&pti or the pervasion.
Thus the rising of a river may be due to its having been
dammed up, the carrying off their eggs by the ants may
have been caused by some accidental disturbance of their
hill, and the screaming of the peacocks may really have
been imitated by men. The fault, however, in such cases
does not affect the process of inference, but the Vyapti
only; and as soon as the relation between the sign and
the thing signified has been rectified, the inference will
come right. Each Vy&pti, that is each inductive truth,
consists of a sign (Linga), and the bearer of a sign (Lingin).
The bearer of the sign is called Vyapaka or pervading,
the sign itself Vy&pya, what is to be pervaded. ~Thus
smoke is the sign (Linga, Vyapya), and fire is what per-
vades the smoke, is always present when there is smoke, is
the sine qud non of smoke, is therefore Lingin or Vyapaka.
But everything depends on whether the two are either
absolutely or only conditionally related. These conditions
are called the Upadhis. Thus the relation between fire and
smoke is conditioned by damp firewood; and there are
other cases also where fire exists without smoke, as in
a red-hot iron ball.
The third kind of inference, the S&mginyato Dr?sh£a,
based on what is constantly seen together, is illustrated
by our inferring that the sun is moving because it is seen
in different places, everything that is seen in different
places being known to have moved. Here the Vyapti, on
which the ancient logicians depended, had to wait till it
was corrected by Copernicus.
Even a deaf man may infer the existence of sound if
he sees a particular conjunction of a drumstick with a drum.
It requires but a certain amount of experience to infer the
presence of an ichneumon from seeing: an excited snake, or
INFERENCE OE ANUMANA. 381
to infer fire from perceiving the heat of water, nay to infer
the existence of an organ of touch from our feeling any
animated body. In all such cases the correctness of the
inference is one thing, the truth of the conclusion quite
another, the latter being always conditioned by the presence
or absence of certain Upadhis.
Different from this very natural explanation of the three
kinds of Anumana is another, according to which $esha is
not supposed to mean subsequent effect, allowing us to
infer its invariable cause, but is to be taken in the sense of
what is left. This is illustrated by an example, such as
e Earth is different from all other elements, because it alone
possesses the quality of smell/ that is to say, earth is left
over, being separated from all other elements by its
peculiar quality of smell. One might have inferred from
the fact that the element of earth possesses smell, that all
elements possessed the same. But this is wrong, because
it is Aprasakta, i. e. does not apply. It would be no better
than if we were to infer that smell must belong to other
qualities and actions also, which would be simply absurd.
But as earth is different from all other substances, we may
infer that smell does not belong to anything that is not
earth, except artificially, as in scented articles. This is the
residuary inference, or method of residues.
In the same manner we are told that Purva, the prius,
should not be taken in the sense of antecedent cause, but
as a general concept the properties uf which have been
formerly comprehended as known. Thus from smoke on
a hill we should infer the presence of a particular fire on
the hill, falling under the general concept of fire as belong-
ing to the genus fire.
The third, or Samanyato DHshtfa, inference, is illustrated
by our inferring the existence of senses, which are by
themselves imperceptible (Indriya/m Atindriya??-i). because
we do perceive colour &c., and as no actions nan take place
without instruments we may infer the existence of senses
as instruments for our action of seeing, &e. Samanyato
Drishta, thus becomes very like the seeing of a general
concept. It is inference from the sensible to the super-
sensible.
382 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
With all respect for native commentators, both ancient
and modern, I must confess that I prefer the more natural
explanation of the three kinds of inference being based on
cause, effect, and association, nay I find it difficult to under-
stand why this view should have been given up by the
modern Naiyayikas.
Among these three inferences, the first and last are called
Vita or straightforward, the second Avita, or not straight-
forward ; but this only if we adopt the second explanation
of the three kinds of Anum&na.
We shall have to deal again with Anum&na when we
come to consider the seventh Padartha, the Avayavas
or Premisses, or what we should call the members of a
syllogism.
Comparison or Upaxnana.
3. Next follows Comparison (Upamana) or recognition
of likeness, explained as an instrument for ascertaining
what has to be ascertained by means of similarity with
something well known before. For instance, having been
told that a Gavaya (bos gavaeus) is like a cow, and seeing
an animal like a cow, but not a cow, a man may infer that
it is a Gavaya.
Word or &abda.
4. Word (/Sabda) is explained either as a precept; of one
worthy to be trusted, or as a right precept. It refers, we
are told, either to visible or invisible objects^ It is curious
to see that among the people to be trusted (Apta)Athe com-
mentator should mention not only Rishis and Aryas, but
Mle/c/c//as or barbarians also, provided they are well in-
formed. Strictly speaking the Veda would not come under
Sabda, unless it can be proved to be Aptava&ana, the word
of one worthy to be trusted.
XX. Prameya.
The second Padartha or topic is Prameya, that is, all that
Can be established by the four Prama/nas, or what we
should call omne scibile. Twelve such objects are men-
tioned: (i) Self or soul, (2) body, (3) senses, (4) sense-
PRAMEYA. 383
objects, (5) understanding, (6) mind, (7) activity (will), (8)
faults, (9) transmigration, (10) rewards of deeds, (n) suf-
fering, (12) final beatitude. The first six of these are
called causative, the other six caused. Gotaraa next pro-
ceeds to define each of these Prameyas, by enumerating the
characteristics peculiar to each.
1. The characteristics of the Self are desire, hatred, will,
pleasure, pain, and knowing (Buddhi).
2. Body is defined as the seat of action, of the senses, and
what they intimate, that is, their objects l.
3. The senses or organs of sense are defined as those of
smell, taste, sight, touch, and hearing. They are supposed
to arise from the elements.
4. These elements (from which the senses draw their
origin and their perceptions) are earth, water, light, air,
and ether ; while the objects of the senses are the qualities
of earth, &c.3 such as odour, savour, colour, touch, and
sound. It is essential to remember that of the elements
the first four are both eternal and non-eternal, while the
fifth,.^Akasa, which we translate by ether, is eternal only,
and hence not tangible. The non-eternal substances are
either inorganic, organic, or sensitive, but always related
to the sense, so that the sense of light perceives or sees
light only. The sense of scent perceives odour only, and
so on.
5. As to Buddhi, understanding, it is by the Naiyayikas
explained as being the same as apprehension or knowledge,
and as being twofold, notion, Anubhava, and remembrance,
Smarana.
6. Mind (Manas) is different from understanding, and is
explained as that which prevents more than one notion
'i from arising at the same time, that is to say, it prevents
the rushing in of all sorts of sensuous impressions at once,
and regulates them in our consciousness. It is sometimes
called the gatekeeper or controller of the senses. The
transformation of sensations into percepts, and of percepts
into concepts, a subject little cultivated by Indian philo-
1 According to the commentary the sensations, and according to the
next Sutra, the qualities of the objects of sense, which alone can be
perceived.
384 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
sophers, would naturally fall to the Manas. Little atten-
tion, however, is paid by Hindu logicians to this subject,
which has assumed such large proportions with us. Even
the distinction between percepts, Vorstellungen, and con-
cepts, Begriffe, has never been fully realised Dy Indian
logicians.
Manas or mind is considered as Ann or an atom, and
the question has been fully discussed how Manas, being
Ami, can be united with Atman, which is Vibhu, or in-
finitely great. If, with the Mimarasakas, it were admitted
that the two could unite, then there could never be any
cessation of knowledge, such as we know there is in sleep,
for the union of Atman and Manas, if once, effected, would
be indissoluble. It is held by the Naiyayikas that when
Manas enters a particular region of the body called Puritat,
the effect of the union of Atman and Manas is neutralised,
and sleep ensues. If Manas were supposed to be co-exten-
sive with the body it would be Anitya, non- eternal, and be
destroyed with the body, and we should lose that which
retains the impressions of acts done in the body, nay we
should be unable to account for a future life and the in-
equalities of birth in any future life ; we snould have to
admit, in fact, effects without a cause. The Naiyayikas
hold, therefore, that the Manas is both ATIU, infinitely
small., and Nitya, eternal (Tarka-kaumudi, p. 4, n. 24), while
Manas, like Atman, is eternal and numerous, differing, how-
ever, from Atman by being atomic in dimension
7. Activity (will) is the effort of body, of the under-
standing working through the mind (Manas), and of the
voice.
8. Faults cause acts, and acts bear fruit, good or bad \
9. Pretyabhava is transmigration.
10. Rewards are results produced by faults, in the most
general sense, and by actions consequent on them, so that
they are sometimes explained as consciousness of pleasure
and pain.
n. Pain is characterised by vexation; and as pleasure
also involves pain, both pain and pleasure are here treated
1 See I, ao, Pravrittidoshagranitarthafc phalam.
THE AVAYAVAS, OR MEMBERS OF A SYLLOGISM 385
together under pain. Entire deliverance from pain and
pleasure is
12. Apavarga or final beatitude.
Having thus examined all that can form the object of
our knowledge, the Praina-nas or measures of knowledge,
and the Prameyas, we now enter on the third of the sixteen
topics.
III. Saw say a.
Sams-ay a or doubt. Doubt, we are told, arises from our
recognition of various attributes opposed to one another
in one and the same object, as when we recognise in a
distant object the qualities of a man and of a post. The
definition given of doubt shows that the ancient logicians
of India had carefully thought about the different causes of
doubt, bo that they were led to the admission of three or
even five kinds of it.
IV. Prayoyana. V. Drrsh^anta. VI. Siddhanta.
But these disquisitions, as well as tho.se referring to (IV)
Prayogfana, purpose or motive ; (V) Drish/anta, example,
familiar case ; (VI) Siddhanta, tenets, contain nothing that
is of peculiar interest to the historian of philosophy, except
so far as they offer once more the clearest evidence of a long
continued previous study of logic in the ancient schools or
settlements of India,
VII. The Avayavas, or Members of a Syllogism.
Much more important is th^ next subject, the so-called
members, that is, the members of a syllogism. To us a
syllogism and its structure are so familiar that we hardly
j feel surprised at meeting with it in the schools of logic in
i India. Yet, unless we are inclined to admit either an
influence of Greek on Indian, or of Indian on Greek philo-
sophy, neither of which has as yet been proved, the coin-
cidences between the two are certainly startling. As to
myself I feel bound to confess that I see no evidence of
any direct influence, cither on one side or on the other ;
and though I am far from denying its possibility, I keep to
my conviction, expressed many years ago, that we must
here also admit the existence of undesigned coincidences to
25
386 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
a much larger extent than our predecessors were inclined to
do. We must never forget that what has been possible in
one country, is possible in another also.
At the time when the different systems of Indian philo-
sophy became first known to the scholars of Europe every-
thing that came from the East was looked upon as of
extreme antiquity. There had been vague traditions of
ancient Indian philosophy even before the time of Aristotle.
Alexander himself, we are told, was deeply impressed with
that idea, as we may gather from his desire to communicate
with the gymnosophists of India.
Indian and Greek Logic
One of these gymnosophists or Digambaras seems to have
been the famous Kalanos (Kalyana ?), who died a voluntary
death by allowing himself to be burnt before the eyes of
the Macedonian army. It was readily admitted, therefore,
by European scholars that the Hindu systems of philosophy,
and particularly Indian Logic, were more ancient than that
of Aristotle, and that the Greeks had borrowed the first
elements of their philosophy from the Hindus.
The view that Alexander might actually have sent some
Indian philosophical treatises to his tutor at home, and
this even at a time when, as far as we know at present,
manuscripts in India were still unknown, and that Aris-
totle might have worked them up into a system, incon-
ceivable as it now seems to us, was taken up and warmly
defended by men like Gorres and others. Gorres under-
took to prove tjiat the Greeks had actually retained some
technical terms taken from Sanskrit. For instance, as
Indian ^philosophers admit five elements, the fifth being
called Akasa, ether, Gorres, without giving any reference,
uoted a passage from Aristotle in which he speaks of a
element and calls it aKaT-oyo'/uaroy, i.e. alcds-nomi-
, this being probably an ingenious conjecture for
urrov l. It is quite true that one such verbal coin-
j^idpnce would settle the whole question, but even that one
1 Plutarch, De Placit. Philos.,- quotes Epicurus as to the soul being
a mixture of three elements, fire, air, and water, anl a fourth
OTOV, b %v avrw alaOr)TiK6y.
INDIAN AND GREEK LOGIC. 387
coincidence has not yet been 'discovered. No doubt there
were many points of coincidence between Greek and Indian
logic, but none in technical terms, which, like proper names
in Comparative Mythology, would have clinched the argu-
ment once for all.
But does it, on the other hand, show a higher power of
historical criticism, if Niebuhr and others stood up for the
opposite view and tried to derive Indian philosophy from
Greece ? Niebuhr is reported to have said in his Lectures
on Ancient History, ' If we look at Indian philosophy we
discern traces of a great similarity with that of the Greeks.
Now as people have given up the hypothesis that Greek
philosophy formed itself after Indian philos6phy, we can-
not explain this similarity except by the intercourse which
the Indians had with the Graeco-Macedonic kingdom of
Bactra.'
Is that really so ? To Niebuhr and to most Greek scholars
it would naturally seem next to impossible that Greek philo-
sophy, which can be watched from its first childhood, should
have been of foreign origin, a mere importation from India.
They know how Greek philosophy grew up gradually, how
its growth ran parallel with the progress of Grecian poetry,
religion, art, and civilisation. They feel it to be a home-
grown production, as certainly as Plato and Aristotle were
Greeks and not Brahmans.
But they ought not to be surprised if Sanskrit scholars
have just the same feeling with regard to Indian philosophy.
They also can show how in India the first philosophical
ideas, as yet in a very vague and shadowy form, show
themselves in the hymns of the early poets of the Veda.
They can trace their gradual development in the BrahmaTias
and Upanishads They can show how they gave rise to
discussions, public and private, how they assumed a more
and more definite form, and how at last they were fixed in
different schools in that form in which they have .reached
us. They, too, are as certain that philosophy was auto-
chthonous in India as that Gotama and Ka^ada were
Brahmans and not Greeks.
What then remains I It seems to me that until it can be
proved historically that the Greeks could freely converse
o c 2
388 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
with Indians in Greek or in Sanskrit on metaphysical sub-
jects or vice versa, or until technical philosophical terms can
be discovered in Sanskrit of Greek, or in Greek of Sanskrit
origin, it will be best to accept facts and to regard both
Greek and Indian philosophy as products of the intellectual
soil of India and of Greece, and derive from their striking
similarities this simple conviction only, that in philosophy
also there is a wealth of truth which forms the common
heirloom of all mankind, and may be discovered by all
nations if they search for it with honesty and perse-
verance.
Having once learnt this lesson we shall feel less inclined,
whenever we meet with coincidences of any kind, to con-
cliide at once that they cannot be explained except by
admitting a historical contact and a borrowing on one side
or the other l. No doubt there are the Vaiseshika catego-
ries =Padarthas, there is Dravya, substance, Gmia, quality;
there is genus =: Sam&nya, and species =Vi^esha, nay, even
syllogism=the Avayavas; there is induction =Vy&pti, and
deduction =TJpanay a, both in Sanskrit and in Greek. But
why not ? If they could be developed naturally in Greece,
why not in India ? Anyhow, we must wait and not hamper
the progress of research by premature assertions,
VXXZ. Tarka.
But before we enter into the intricacies of the Indian
syllogism, it will be best to finish first what remains of
the sixteen topics of the Nyaya. After the five members
follows VIII, Tarka, which is explained as refutation, or
reasoning from the fitness of the case, as when a person,
though seeing smoke on a hill, does not see that there
must be fire, and 'is thereupon made to see that if the hill
were without fire, it would of necessity be without smoke.
It is meant to be a reductio ad absurdum.
IX. Hirnaya.
The next topic to be considered is IX, Niroaya, ascer-
tainment.
1 See M. M., On Coincidences, a paper read before the Royal Society
of Literature, 7896.
VADA, ETC. 389
V&da, (Salpa, tTitanda, HetvAfeMaa, Gfcti,
Then follow the paragraphs connected with rhetoric or
eristics rather than with logic, such as X, Vada or argu-
mentation, consisting of objections and answers, both dis-
putants, however, caring for truth only; next XI, (?alpa,
sophistical wrangling or attacking what has been estab-
lished, by means of fraud ; XIV, ffati, futility, arising from
false analogies ; XV, IT/iala, quibbling ; and XVI, Nigra-
hasthana, unfitness for discussion. In the last five cases
disputants are supposed to care for victory only, and not
for truth.
If this wrangling is devoid of any attempt at really
establishing an opposite opinion, it is called XII, Vitawda,
cavilling,
We next come to XIII, Hetvabhasas, or specious argu-
ments, that is, paralogisms and sophisms. These are
Savyabhifcara, arguments that prove too much, Viruddha,
that prove the reverse, Prakaranasama, that tell equally on
both sides, Sadhyasama, that stand themselves in need of
proof, arid Kalatita, mistimed.
As to XV. EVtala, fraud in using words in a sense different
from what is generally understood, and XIV, (?ati, futility
arising from change of class, they have been mentioned be-
fore. It is difficult to understand why Crati, i.e. birth or
genus, should mean a futile argument, unless it meant ori-
ginally a transitio in alterum genus, as when, in answer
to an argument that a man is unable to travel, because he
has a fever, it should be answered that he is able to travel,
because he is a soldier. Here the same man is referred
first to the class of those who suffer from fever, and then
to that of soldiers who are always supposed to be able to
inarch.
The last, XVI, Nigrahasthana, unfitness for discussion, is
when a man by misunderstanding or not understanding, yet
continuing to talk, renders himself liable to reproof.
This may seem a long list, though in several cases there
are subdivisions which have here been left out, and yet at
the end of the list Gotama actually apologises and says
that there are many more sorts of futility, £c., which have
39O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
been passed over by him, but will have to be discussed
hereafter.
Judgments on Indian Logic.
If we were to took upon this list of the sixteen topics, as
some have done, as an abstract of Gotama's whole philo-
sophy, or with others, as his table of the categories* Euro-
pean philosophers would no doubt be justified in saying
what Bitter said in his History of Philosophy that the ex-
position of the Nyaya is tedious, loose, and unmethodical,
It is certainly mixed up with subjects which have nothing
to do with pure logic, but so was Greek logic in its begin-
ning, in the school of .Zeno, for instance. It may be also
too minute« for our taste, but it cannot be called loose at the
same time. It is equally unfair to charge the Nyaya and
all the other systems of Indian philosophy, with being un-
practical and with entirely ignoring all the problems of
ethics. We must remember that philosophy in India had
very different antecedents from what it had with us. We
o.urselves can hardly conceive a philosophy which iirthe
end is not to be of practical usefulness, and which ignores
all questions of morality. But we must learn to take philo-
sophers as they are. Morality with the Brahmans depends
either on prescriptive sacra (Dharma), or on what is called
Samaya, the agreement of good people. But its strongest
support is a firm belief in the solidarity of life here and
hereafter, and a firm conviction that nothing can ever be
lost. The popular mind of India seems never to have
doubted the fact that every good or every evil thought
or deed will grow and bear fruit, and that no one can
ever escape from the consequences of his own acts and
thoughts. Whether such a belief is right or wrong is not
the question, but it produced at all events a deep sense of
responsibility. Instead of complaints about the injustice
and cruelty of God, people were taught that what seemed
undeserved misfortunes, were fully deserved, were in fact
the natural consequences of previous acts, and in one respect
the safest means of paying off all debts. Philosophy at the
Same time held out a hope that in the end this net of con-
sequences might be broken through, and; the Self, enlight-
THE LATER BOOKS OF THE NYAYA. 39!
ened by true knowledge, return to whence it came, return
to himself and be himself ; that is, be again the Universal
Self, free for ever from the chains and pains of this tran-
sient episode of life on earth.
That highest freedom and beatitude, according to Indian
views, depended on philosophy or knowledge ; it could not
be acquired by good works or good thoughts alone. This
again may be right or wrong, but I can discover no loose-
ness of reasoning in it, nor in Indian philosophy in general.
We must not forget that, from a Hindu point of view, this
life on earth is but an episode that may be very important
in itself, but is a mere nothing compared with what lies
behind and before, the eternal life of the soul. If they
hold that a knowledge of the true relation between man
and the world, and between man and the Author of the
world, is essential to true freedom and true happiness, are
they so far wrong ? And what is true in the case of the
Vedanta, the Samkhya and Yoga systems of philosophy,
is true in a certain sense of the Nyaya also. It may be
said that the fundamental points of this philosophy art
contained in what can be known, Prameya, and the means
of knowing, Prama/fta, that is to say, it seemed necessary
to Gotarna to establish, first of all, the limits of the two,
just as Kant began his philosophy with his Critique of
Pure Reason, that is, the tracing of the limits of Pure
Reason. But this being done in full detail under his
sixteen headings, Gotama too, like Baclaraya?ia and Kapila,
enters on an explanation of the process by which it was
possible to destroy ignorance or Mithyagwana, which, as he
holds, is the true cause of error or sin, * which is the cause
of activity, which is the cause of birth, which is the cause
of suffering ' (I, 3). This, whether right or wrong, is at all
events perfectly coherent, nor does it betray any looseness
of reasoning, if indirectly the whole Nyaya-philosophy is
called the cause of final freedom or blessedness. Modern
Ny&ya is almost entirely confined to PramaTia.
The Later Books of the Ny&ya.
In this way the first book of the Nyaya-Sutras gives us
indeed a fair outline of the whole of Gotama's philosophy,
392 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
while the following three books enter into a more minute
examination of its details. Thus the second book treats
more fully of the Prama/ftas, the third and fourth of the
Prameyas, the fifth treats of all that comes under the head
of paralogisms. Some of the questions discussed in these
books show quite clearly that they must have formed the
subject of lively and long-continued controversy, for though
some of the objections raised may seem to us of little
importance, they prove at all events the conscientiousness
of the early Naiyayikas.
Pratyaksha, Perception.
That sensuous perception should be a PramaTta or
authority would hardly seem to us to have required further
proof. But Gotama or his opponent starts the question,
on what ground the evidence of the senses can claim such
authority, or who is the authority of its authority. This
is an idea that anticipates an important element of modern
philosophy. As a balance may serve to weigh a thing, but
must also be weighed or tested itself, it might be saidjbhat
the authority of the senses also requires to be established
by another authority, and so on ad infvnitum. In answer
to this Gotaina uses what seems to be an ad hominewi
argument, namely, that if there is no authority anywhere,
there can be none on the side of the objector eithei. The
objector would cut away the ground under his own feet,
and thus would himself have no locus standi for offering
any objections (II, 13).
But admitting that sensuous perception has authority
just as a lamp has light to light up the things around it,
the next question is whether the definition of sensuous
perception, that which results from contact of -sense with
its object, is not incomplete, because for real perception
there must be contact not only with the organs of sense,
but likewise between the senses and the mind (Manas), and
between the mind and the Self (Atman). This is not
denied by Gotama, he only defends himself by saying that
everything cannot be said at the same time, and that his
definition of perception, though it dwells only on what is
essential (the contact of sense and object), does by no
TIME — PRESENT, PAST, FUTURE 393
means exclude that between mind and Self, on the contrary
takes it here for granted. He also admits that contact
between sense and object does not invariably produce
perception, that in fact there may be sensation without
perception, as when we are so absorbed in listening to
music that we do not perceive the objects around us, from
want of attention. This again reminds us of modeiai
philosophy. Even such questions as to whether there is
any interval of time between our hearing the sound of
a word and our realising its meaning, are alluded to by
Gotama and his school, and the question whether several
impressions can be taken in at the same time is negatived
by a reference to the running of a pin through a number
of sheets of a MS. Here the piercing seems simultaneous,
yet we know that it can only be successive. Another
question also which has lately occupied our psycho-physi-
ologists, whether perception does not involve inference, is
discussed by Gotama (II, 31), particularly in cases where
our senses can apprehend a part only of their object when
perceiving, for instance, a tree, of which one side only can
be seen at the time, while the rest has to be supplied by
memory or inference. This leads him on to another ques-
tion whether there really is such a thing as a whole, and
as we can in reality never see more than one side at a time,
he tries4*> account for the process by which we take a part
for the whole. No one, for instance, has ever seen more
than one side of the moon, yet taking it as a whole,
and as a globe, we postulate and are convinced that there
is another side also. The illustration given by Gotama to
show that a tree is a whole, namely, because when we
shake one branch of it, the whole tree trembles, may seem
childish to us, but it is exactly in these simple and so-called
childish thoughts that the true interest of ancient philo-
sophy seerns to me to consist.
Time — Present, Fast, Future.
The next problem that occupies Gotama is that of time —
of present, past, and future. The objector, and in this
case, it seems, a very real objector, for it is the opinion of
the Buddhists, denies that there is such a thing as present
394 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
time, because the moment we see a fruit falling from a tree,
we see only that it has fallen or that it has still to fall, but
never that it is falling. Here the answer is that past and
future themselves would be impossible, if the present did
not exist, and on the objector's admitting such a possibility.
Gotama remarks that in that case perception and all that
springs from it would be altogether impossible, because it
can only depend on what is present.
Upamana, Comparison
Passing over what is said in this piace about the validity
of inference, because we shall have to return to it hereafter,
we find Gotama bent on establishing by the side of it, by
the side of Anumana, his next instrument of knowledge,
namely Upamana, analogy or comparison. And here Gotama
seems in conflict with KaTiada who, as we shall see, declines
to accept Upamana, comparison, as one of the independent
authoritative evidences, or, at all events, as essentially
different from Anumana, inference. We might feel tempted
to conclude from this that Gotama must have been laier in
time than Kaw/ada. But first of all, Kanada's name is not
mentioned here nor that of his system, Vaiseshika; and
secondly, we know that this question of the Prama/nas had
been discussed again and again in every school of Indian
philosophy, so that a mere reference to the subject cannot
be used as determining the seniority either of the opponent
or of the defender. All we can say is that, whenever we
see Upamana appealed to as a means of valid knowledge,
we know that we have to deal with followers of the Nyaya
school ; but the Vaiseshika, though denying it an inde-
pendent place among the Pram&?ms, would by no means
reject it, if presented as a kind of Anumana.
£abda, the Word.
We now come to the various kinds of verbal testimony.
Testimony is said to be conveyed by words, and by a sen-
tence, consisting of many words, conveying the meaning of
each word in its relation to the other words. Though the
meaning of words is admitted to be conventional, yet
opinions differ because some consider such conventions to
THE EIGHT PRAMA.YAS. 395
be eternal or divine, while others take them to be non-
eternal or human. The chief authority for determining
the meaning of a word is admitted to be the usage of
trustworthy persons, but it is argued that as the highest
authority is Brahman or God, and as the Veda is the word
of Brahman, it follows that every word of the Veda
possesses the highest authority. This, however, as we know,
does not satisfy the Mimamsakas, who assign eternity to
the /Sabda itself, the word or the sound of a word.
In the examination of the validity of $abda or word, we
find again the same question started as before, whether it
deserves a place by itself, or whether it should not rather
be treated as a kind of inference. Then, after Gotama has
shown the difference between £ I know ' and * I infer,5
between acceptance of the word of an authority (Apto-
padesa) and reliance on an inference, he enters on new
problems such as the association of sense with sound,
a question which is intimately connected with the question
of what authority is due to the Veda as the Word par
excellt/nce. Here we meet with a number of arguments in
defence of the supreme authority of the Veda with which
we are familiar from the Purva-Mimamsa, but which
again, though clearly referring to <?aimini, must not be
taken to prove the anteriority of (raimini's Sfttras to those
of Gotaina's, and certainly do not enable us to admit more
than the contemporaneous activity of the various schools
of Hindu philosophy during the centuries intervening be-
tween the close of the Vedic age and the rise and spread
of Buddhism.
The Eigiit Frama?;as.
Having defended the teaching of the Nyaya, that there
are four Pramanas, neither more nor less, Gotama proceeds
to criticise the four additional Pramanas of the Mima/w-
sakas, and shows that their number is superabundant.
They include, as we saw, Aitihya, tradition, not necessarily
authoritative, Arthapatti, assumption, Sambhava, proba-
bility, and even Abhava, non-existence, because they hold
that there can be knowledge arising from not-being or
from absence, as when we conclude from the fact that
396 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Devadatta is not in his house, that he must have gone out.
Of these four Pram&?ias the first is referred by Getama to
$abda, Word, the others to Anumana, inference, while
-Keshtfa, or mere gesture, as supplying knowledge, may> it
is added, be classed either under Word, like written letters,
or under Anumana. The Prama^as seem to have formed
a subject of prominent interest to the Nyaya philosophers ;
in modern times they have absorbed the whole of Nyaya.
We are told that Nagar<?una, before he became a Buddhist?
was a zealous student of the Nyaya-philosophy. He wrote
a work, called Prama7ia-samuM*aya, which was, however,
supposed to be lost, till Sarat Chandra discovered a Tibetan
version ol it in the library of the Grand Lama at Lhassa
(Journal of the Buddhist Text Society, IV3 parts iii and
iv, p. 17)1.
Here follow long discussions as to the nature of words,
the difference between sound (Dhvani) and words, till we
arrive again at the question whether the word is eternal,
and therefore a PramaTia by itself, or not. Similar ques-
tions occur in most of the Indian philosophical systems,
and as I passed them over before, it will be necessary to
examine them more fully in this place, where we meet with
tjiem again as worked out by Gotama. Though they deal
with such purely grammatical questions as whether a vowel
such as i can ever be changed into the semi- vowel y, in
fact whether any letter can ever become another letter,
these disquisitions branch out very far, and we shall be
surprised to see how intimately in the minds of Hindu
philosophers they are connected with some of the greatest
problems of philosophy, such as the existence of a Creator
and the relation between the cause and the effect of our
created world.
The oftener we read these discussions on the eternal
character of sound, on words and their true nature, and at
last on the divine, nay transcendental character of language,
the more we shall feel the difference between Eastern and
Western philosophy. The true problem of language has
been almost entirely neglected by Greek philosophers and
1 This would prove at the same time the^tudy of the Ny&ya-philosophy
In the firsfc century of our era ; see p. 366.
THOUGHTS ON LANGUAGE. 397
their disciples in Europe, for all the discussions about the
(frva-fi or flcW i origin of language touch only the very hem
of the question, as it presents itself to Indian philosophers.
The way in which the problem of language is handled by
them will no doubt be dismissed as childish by modern
philosophers, and I do not mean to deny that some of their
remarks on language are really childish, But we shall see
that the whole question is treated by Hindu philosophers
in a very serious and searching spirit. Students of philo-
sophy should overlook what may seem strange to them
in the manner of treatment, and always try to keep their
eye on what is important and has often been overlooked
even by the greatest thinkers among us. Language has
been to most of us so familiar a subject that we have hardly
perceived what is behind it, and have scarcely asked the
questions which it has cost so much effort to Indian philo-
sophers to answer. We have already on a former occasion
examined some of the views on language, as expressed in
the philosophical hymns, BrahmaTias, and Upanishads of
the Y^die period. We have now to follow up these views
as they are presented to us in a more systematic form in
the Sfttra-period.
Thoughts on
If I was right in tracing the word BHh, speech, in
Brihas-pati, back to the same root as that of Brahman, the
connection of the two ideas, Word and Creator, would
carry us back even beyond what we call the Vedic period.
At all events the idea that Brahman was the Word, and
that the world was created by the Word, existed, as we
saw, long before the rise of philosophical systems. It was
shadowed forth in the very language of India, but it
received its full development in the Sfttras only, more
particularly in the Vedanta-Sfttras, to which we must
return for our present purpose. We read in Sfttra I, 3, 28 :
'We refute his objection on the ground that (the world)
originates from the Word, as is shown both by perception
and by inference/ Perception is here taken in the sense of
$ruti, scripture, *and inference in the sense of Smriti,
tradition. An objection had been started that the Veda
398 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
could not be considered as eternal, if it contained names of
non-eternal things, and as even the gods, the Devas, were
looked upon as non-eternal, having been proved to be
subject to birth and rebirth, it followed that the Veda, as
containing their names, could not possibly be ante-temporal
or eternal. Against this, though readily admitting the
non-eternal character of the gods, the Devas, $amkara
argues, that in spite of that, the gods and other beings, nay
the whole word, must be admitted to have originated from
the Word or the Veda, and that this Word * is Brahman.
Only, he adds, it is not the individuals, nor this or that
Deva, not this or that cow or horse, that had their origin
in the Word, but the genus to which they belong, that is,
the elbrj (Akritis). It is with the genus that words are
connected, not with individuals, for these, as being infinite
in number, are not capable of entering into that connection.
Hence all individual things, and individual gods also, are
allowed to have had an origin, but not the genus to which
they belong, which was thought and uttered at first by
Brahman. Nor must it be supposed that the Word con-
stitutes the material cause of things ; this, as shown before,
lies in Brahman only, which is therefore more than the
Word. The word of the Veda is simply the expression of
what is permanent and eternal in all things (universalia
in rebus), and as all individual things are created in
accordance with it, they are rightly said to have their true
origin in the Veda and in Brahman. This is afterwards
confirmed by passages from $ruti and Smriti, such as Brih.
Ar. Up. I, a, 4 : ( Then with his mind he united himself
with Speech/ The Word therefore, or Speech, existed
before creation, as we read in the Smriti also, e.g. the
Mahabharata XII, 8534: 'He who exists by himself let
- first stream forth the Word, the eternal, without beginning
or end, the Divine Word which we read in the Veda,
whence proceeded the evolution of the world ' ; and again,
Mahabh. XII, 8535: 'God in the beginning created the
names and forms of things, and the continuous process of
their works.'
If we read such passages carefully, it is easy to see that
Veda, which is identified with the words of creation, or the
THOUGHTS ON LANGUAGE. 399
ideas or locjoi of the world, was meant for more than what
was afterwards called the three Vedas, the Samhitas, and
Brahma?ias. Veda stands here for Logos or Sophia, and
comprehends all named concepts, necessary for the creation
of all created things.
In order to show that there is nothing strange in this,
$amkara, remarks that even we ourselves, whe .1 we mean
to do anything, have first to think of the word for what
we mean to do. In the same manner the words of the
Veda had to be present to the mind of the Creator, Pragra-
pati, before he could have created the things corresponding
to them. And thus it is said in the Veda (Taitt. Br. II, 2,
4, a) : ' " This is the earth," he said, and created the earth/
This will sound strange to many readers, as, I confess, it
sounded strange to me when I first came across these
thoughts, so full of Neo-platonic reminiscences, nay even to
such O. T. thought as ' God spake, Let there be light, and
there was light/ Of course, if we can bring ourselves to
say, that the Logos of the Alexandrian philosophers had no
antecedents in early Greek philosophy 19 there would be an
end of the whole question, and we should simply have to
admit that Brahmans came to Alexandria, arid indoctrinated
pagan and Christian philosophers with their ideas of Va&
or Speech. But as every Greek scholar knows that the
very opposite is the case, and I have tried to show this on
several occasions, the question requires a very different
solution from that proposed by Professor Weber, if indeed
it admits of any. Why will people not see that it is far
more scholarlike to confess our ignorance than to give an
answer, however hesitatingly, and thus to discourage further
research ?
Hindu philosophers have treated this whole question
with so much care that we can see at least that they truly
cared for it, and had fully perceived its intimate connection
with some of the highest problems, both religious and
philosophical, which were nearest to their heart.
They begin with the beginning and try first to make it
clear to themselves what $abda is. $abda means word,
1 See Anathon Aall, Geschichte der Logosidee, i8g6, pp. 218 seq.
4OO INDUN PHILOSOPHY.
but it also means sound, and they therefore begin with
asking what sound is. We have seen already that they
actually postulated a fifth element Akasa, which we trans-
late by ether, and which was meant to be the vehicle qf
sound and of sound only. The existence of this fifth
element was altogether denied by the materialists, the
Barhaspat} as, because it is supersensible, but it was
admitted as an independent element by the other schools
of thought, even by the Buddhists, because they held that
air could not possibly be the vehicle of sound. Its loud-
ness might depend on it, but 'not its quality. The Vaite-
shika-philosophy, for instance, which takes a special interest
in the question of the elements, explains sound as the
object apprehended by the sense of hearing (II, 2, 21). It
then declares that sound is neither substance nor action,
but a quality (cf. I, i, 6 com.), having Akasa or ether for
its substance. The opinion that sound exists always and
eternally, and is only made manifest by each speaker,
which is held by the Mima/msakas, is rejected by Karzlda,
sounds and words being accepted as momentary manifesta-
tions only of eternal sound. This is illustrated by the
striking of a drum with a drumstick, where we can clearly
see that sound is produced by a conjunction between a
drum and a drumstick, and that it is only carried along by
the air.
All these arguments are clearly directed against the
Minia/msakas who for reasons of their own require $abda,
whether sound or word, to be eternal. It must be said,
however, to their honour that they allow full credit to
the Pftrvapakshin who opposes the eternal character of
sounds and words. * No/ he says1, ' sound cannot be eternal,
because we see (i) that it is a product, (2) that it passes
away, (3) that it is made (the very letters being called
A-kara, Ka-kara &c., A-making, Ka-making &c.). We see
(4) that it is perceived by different persons at once, (5) that
it changes (as Dadhi Atra changes to Dadhy Atra), and
(6) that it is augmented by the number of those who make
it. But to all these difficulties the Mima/wsaka has a ready
1 Cf. Ballantyne's MimamSA-Sutras, p. 8 ; Muir, Orig. Sansk. Texts, III,
pp. 70 seq.
THOUGHTS ON LANGUAGE. 4O1
answer. The word is eternal, he says, and though the
perception of sound is the same on both sides, we are right
in looking on sound as eternal and as always present, only
not always manifested on account of the absence of an
utterer or an exciter. The letter k, now heard, is the same
which has always been heard. If it is said that sound is
made, that only means that it is employed, and if it is
perceived at the same time by many, the same applies to
the sun. As to the modification of sound, it is no,t the
same letter modified, but it is another letter in the plac£
of a letter, and as to the increase of noise, that is due to
the increase of the number of conjunctions and disjunctions
of the air.
{jaimini's reasons in support of the eternal character
of sound are that, though the sound may vanish, it leaves
its traces in the mind of the hearer or learner; that it is
everywhere at the same time ; that, if repeated, it is the
same, and that we have no right to suppose that it is ever
annihilated. If it should be supposed that sound is a mere
modification of air, the answer is that the ear does not
simply hear the air, btit is sensitive only to what is in-
tangible in sound, the quality. Besides, there are the
definite words of the Veda which tell us of an eternal
Voice.
Having thus established to his own satisfaction the
eternity of sound, (?aiinini proceeds to defend the sounds
or words of the Veda against all possible objections. These
arguments were examined by us before, when the author-
ship of the Veda had to be discussed, and when it was
shown that the author of the Veda could riot have been
a personal being, but that the Veda could only have been
seen by inspired Rishis as revealed to them, not as made
by them. We may therefore at once proceed to the next
point, namely, to the question, as to what constitutes a
word, and what according to Indian philosophers is its real
character. Though these discussions are of a grammatical
rather than of a philosophical character, they deserve our
attention, because they show how keen an interest the
ancient philosophers of India had taken in the Science
of Language, and how clearly they had perceived the
26 0d
4O2 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
intimate relation between language and thought, and in
consequence between the Science of Language and the
Science of Thought or Philosophy.
How well the Hindus understood that the study of
language forms an integral part of philosophy, we may
gather from the fact that they actually admitted Pa/mni,
their greatest grammarian, among their representative
philosophers. They had evidently perceived that language
is the only phenomenal form of thought, and that, as
human beings possess no means of perceiving the thoughts
of others, nay even their own thoughts, except in the form
of words, it- was the duty of a student of thought to inquire
into the nature of words before he approached or analysed
the nature of what we mean by thought, naked thought,
nay skinned thought, as it has been truly called, when
divested of its natural integuments, the words, They
understood what even modern philosophers have failed to
understand, that there is a difference between Vorstellung
(presentation or percept) and Begriff (concept), and that
true thought has to do with conceptual words only, nay
that the two, word and thought, are inseparable, and perish
when separated. Madhava in his survey of all philosophies,
assigns a place between Gaimini's Purva-Mima/msa and
Kapila's Samkhya to the P&Timi Darsana, what we should
call the grammatical system of Pa/mni. Other .systems
also treat most fully of linguistic questions, as, for instance,
the Pilrva-Mima'wsa when treating of the question whether
sound, the material element of words, is eternal or not.
Bpbola.
Hindu philosophers have actually elaborated an ide
which does not exist in any other philosophy, that of
Sphofci. It is true that in Pamni's own Sutras the word!
Spho£a does not occur, but the name of a grammarian whom;
he quotes (VI. I, 123), Sphotfayana, shows that this peculiar
word Sphofa must have existed before Pa/ttini's time. J)e-j
rived as it is from Sphutf. Spho£a must have meant origin-
ally what bursts forth. It has been translated by expres-
sion, notion, concept or idea, but none of these renderings
can be considered as successful. It really means the .sound
SPHC^A. 403
of a word as a whole, and as conveying a meaning, apart
from its component letters. The subject has been well
treated by Madhava in his Sarva-darsana-samgraha. Here,
when examining the Pa?uni Dargana, he. shows first of all
that the Sabda or word which Pa/nini professes to teach
in his ^abdanusasana, or grammar, is really the same as
Brahman. ' The eternal word,' he writes, ; which is called
Sphola, and is without parts, is the true cause of the world/
is in fact Brahman, and he adds thereupon some lines from
Bhartrihari's Bralimakam/a, where that grammarian (died
650 A. D.) says : —
Brahman, without beginning or end, the indestructible
essence of language.
Which developed in the form of things, and Avhence
springs the creation of the world.' - J
What more could be said of the Neo-platonic Logos'?
In answer to some who deny the existence of such a
Spho^a, it is maintained rihat it is actually an object of
perception, for all men, on hearing the word ' cow/ know
it as distinct from the letters composing it, This shows,
as we knew already from the Prati&ikhyas, thatfthe Hindus
had elaborated the idea of letters, nay even of vowels and
consonants, long before they became acquainted with the
written, letters of a Semitic alphabet, and I only wonder
that thooe who believe in an ancient indigenous alphabet,
'should never have appealed, though vainly, to the dis-
cussions of Sphofoi, in support of their opinion. And if
it were said that cognition arises from the separate letters
of a word, we as~lr, he says, whether these letters are sup-/
posed to produce cognition in their collective or in their
separate form. It cannot be in their collective form,
because each letter, as soon as pronounced, vanishes, $nd
therefore cannot form a whole ; nor can it be in their
separate form, because no single letter has the power of
producing cognition of the meaning of any word. As
therefore the, letters, whether in their single or their united
form, cannot produce cognition, there must be something
I else by means of which knowledge is produced, and that
; is the Sphofa, the sound, distinct from the letters though
'revealed by them. He then quotes from Patfltfl^alrs Ma.na-
od *
404 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
bh­a: 'Now what i» the word Cow? It is that by
which, when pronounced, there is produced in vs the simul-
taneous cognition of dewlap, tail, hump, hoofs, and horns/
Kaiyate, explains this more fully by saying: ' Grammarians
maintain that it is the word, as- distinct from the letters;
which expresses the meaning, since, if the letters expressed
it, there would be no use in pronouncing the second and
following ones (as the first would already have conveyed
all that is wished). It is therefore something distinct from
the single letters which conveys the meaning, and that is
what we call the Sphotfa.'
The objector, however, is not silenced at once. He, too,
asks the question whether this Sphofa is manifest or non-
manifest. If it required no manifestation, it would always
be there, but if it requires manifestation, this could be
by its. letters only, when they are pronounced; and thus
the same difficulties which were pointed out before as to
the collective or single action of letters, would arise again.
This dilemma is put forward by Bhafta in his Mima/ms&-
sloka-varttika : 'The grammarian who holds that Sphotfa is
manifested by the letters as they are severally pronounced
and apprehended, though itself one and indivisible, does
not thereby escape from a single difficulty/
On this point Panini (I, 4, 14) seems to have given the
right solution, by laying it down as a principle that letters
can never form a word unless they have an affix at the
end, while the letters, as they are apprehended, simply
help to convey the meaning by means of a conventional
association (deem). This shows that the conventional
character of the relation between sound and meaning was
fully recognised in India, whether that sound was called!
/Sabda or Sphotfa.' Nor is it enough that the letters should j
be the same, they must also follow each other in the same
order, otherwise Vasa and Sava, Nava and Vana, &c.,
would carry the same meaning, which they do not.
All this was meant to show that the admission of a
Sphofa was unnecessaiy ; but we now get the orthodox,
answer, namely, that the admission of Sphxtfa is necessary
and that all the objections are no more than a catching
at a straw by a drowning person, because separate letters
WORDS EXPRESS THE 8UMMUM GENUS. 405
would never be a word, as little as flowers without a string,
would be a wreath. And as the letters cannot combine,
:>eing evanescent as soon as they have been pronounced,
;ve are asked to admit a Sphotfa, and to accept the first
etters, as revealing the invisible Sphotfa, whereas the
following letters serve only to make that Sphotfa more and
more manifest and explicit.
Words express the Summum Genus.
After having thus in his own way established the theory
of a Sphoia for every word, our philosophical grammarian
lakes another step, trying to prove that the meaning of all
words is ultimately that summum genus (Satta), namely
>ure existence, the characteristic of which is consciousness
)f the supreme reality. And lest it should be thought
ihat in that case all words would mean one and the same
ihing, namely Brahman or being, it is remarked that in one
sense this is really so ; but that, as a crystal is coloured by
its surroundings, Brahman, when connected with different
things and severally identified with each, stands after-
wards for different species, such as cow, horse, &c., these
3eing first of all ' existence ' (Satta) or the highest genus,
as found in individuals, and then only what they are in
ihis phenomenal world. In support of this another passage
of BhartoiharFs is quoted : .' Existence being divided, a$
:ound in cows, &c,, is called this or that species by means
of its connection with different objects, and on it all words
depend. This they call the meaning of the stem, and the
meaning of the root. This is existence, this is the great
Aim an (or Brahman), expressed by affixes such as Tva, Tal,
&c., which form abstract nouns, such as Ga-tva, cow-hood,
&c. For existence, as the summum genus , is found in all
things, in cows, horses, &c., and therefore all words, expres-
sive of definite meanings, rest ultimately on the swrn/rriwn
genus, existence, differentiated by various thoughts or words,
such as cows, horses, &c., in which it resides. If the stem-
word, the. Pratipadika, expresses existence, the root ex-
presses Bhava, a state, or, as others say, Kriya, action/ .
This will remind us of^many of the speculations of Greek
as well as medieval logicians ; and tt is Exactly what my
406 -INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
late friend Noire tried to establish, that all words originally
expressed action, to which I added the amendment that
they expressed either an action or a status. If this true
kernel of every word is Jby Hindu philosophers called the
Great Atman (Mahan Atma). and Satta, the summum
genus, we must remember that, according to the Vedanta,
Brahman is the true substance of everything. This is
stated again by Bhartrihari : —
' The true reality is known under its illusory forms, by
words under untrue disguises; the true reality is named
(for a time), like the house of Devadatta, so called for a'
vanishing reason (that is, only so long as Devadatta is
the possessor of the house) ; but by the word house, pure
househood l only is expressed/
Words expressive of Genera or Individuals V
But while the meaning of all words is -thus admitted
to be Brahman, we meet with two schools, the one of
Vagrapyayana, maintaining that our ordinary words mean
a genus, the other, of Vyadi, who holds that they mear: indi-
vidual things. PaTiini holds both views as true in grammar,
for in one place, I, 2, 58, he shows that * a Brahman 5 may
mean many Brahmans,. as when we say, that a Brahman
is to be honoured ; in another, I, 2, 64, he states that the
plural Riimas means always Rama, Rama and Ramd, i.e, so
many single Ramas.
All Words mean rr> &\
The idea that all words in the end mean Brahman, the
one Supreme Being, was necessitated by the very character
of ijhe Vedanta-philosophy, which admits of "no duality
except as the result of nescience. Hence it is said : The
Supreme Being is the thing denoted by all words, arid it is
identical with the word; but the relation of the two, while
they are ultimately identical, varies as it does in the case
of the, two Atmans, the Paramatman and the (?ivatman,
the highest or universal, and the living or individual soul,
the difference between the two being due to Avidya or
i
1 Read Grihatvam instead of Gnhitam ?
ALL WOliDS MEAN TO ov. i 407
temporary nescience. As early as the M&itraya?ia Upa-
nishad we meet with verses to the same effect, and of an
earlier date than itself, such as (VI, 32), ' Two Branmans
have to he meditated on, the Word and the Non-word, and
by the Word alone is the Non-word revealed/ In this
way the grammatical philosophers endeavoured to prove
that grammar or exposition of words, as it was called
by Fata;? grail ($abd&nusasaiia), is, like every other system
of philosophy, 'the means of final beatitude, the door of
emancipation, the medicine of the diseases of language,
the purifier of all sciences, the science of sciences ; it is the
first rung on the ladder that leads up to final bliss, and
the straight royal road among all the roads that lead to
emancipation/
This may be accepted as representing the views, if not
of Pa/mni himself, at least of his followers ; and I must say
that if his explanation of a word as a number of letters
ending in a suffix had been accepted, there would have
been no necessity for the admission of a Spho£a. It was
evidently not seen by the inventors of this Sphotfa that
letters have no independent existence at all, and can be
considered only as the result of a scientific analysis, and
that words existed long before even the idea of letters
had been formed. Letters, by themselves, have no raison
d'etre. Sphota is in fact the word before it had been
analysed into letters, the-- breaking forth of a whole and
undivided utterance, such as Go, 'cow/ conveying a mean-
ing which does not depend on any single letter nor on any
combination of them. Though from our point of view the
idea of such a Sphotfa may -seem unnecessary, we cannot
help admiring the ingenuity of the ancient philosophers of
India in inventing such a term, and in seeing difficulties
which never attracted the attention of European philo-
sophers. For it is perfectly true that the letters, ^is such,
have no reality and no power, and that every word is
something different from its letters, something undivided
and indivisible. In such a word as V&&, Vox, we have
not a combination of three letters, v, a, k, which would be
nothing, but we have an indivisible explosion, expressive
of its meaning in its undivided form only, and this maybe
4.68 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
raised to the s'atus of a word by means of a grammatical
suffix which, as we should say, makes an organised whole
of it. All this is true and recognised now by all students
of the Science of Language, though never even suspected
by the philosophers of other countries.
Still more important is the idea that all words originally
meant Brahman or TO 6v, and receive their special meaning
from their relation to the genera or logoi in the mind of
Brahman, as creative types. Words are not names of in-
dividuals, but always of classes or genera, and as genera
they are eternal. These logoi existed before the creation
of the worlfl, nay, rendered that creation possible. This is
the much-despised Neo-platonic philosophy, the basis of the
Christian theory of creation ; and that we should find it
so fully elaborated in the ancient world of India is surely
a surprise, and, I should add, a welcome surprise. And can
we suppose that ideas which, in Greece, required so many
evolutions of thought till they reached the point which
they reached in Alexandria, and afterwards in Palestine,
should have sprung up in India suddenly or, as it were,
casually? Do we not rather see clearly here also how long
and how continuous a development of thought must have
taken place south of the Himalayas before such fruits
could have ripened ? Would any Greek scholar dare to
say that all this was borrowed from Greece ? Would any
Sanskrit scholar be so intrepid as to hint that the Greeks
might possibly have learnt their Logos from the Vedic Va/c ?
Even if we do not accept the last results of this Indian line
of thought, which ended w\ere Greek philosophy ended,
and where Christian philosophy began, nay even if we
should put aside as unintelligible the beginning words of the
fourth Gospel, * In the beginning was the Word/ we can at
least admire the struggle which led up to this view of the
world, and tried to establish the truth that there is a Logos,
thought, that there is Rhyme and Reason in the world, and
that the whole universe is full of Brahman, the Eternal
and the Divine, not visible to the human eye, though
visible to the human mind. That mind, according to
Indian philosophy, has its true being in the Divine Mind,
in which it lives and moves, in which alone it has its
ALL WORDS MEAN TO 6V 409
true Self or Atman, which Atman is Brahman. To have
mounted to such heights, even if we have to descend again
frightened and giddy, must have strengthened the muscles
of human reason, and will remain in our memory as a sight
never to be forgotten, even in the lower spheres in which
we have to move in our daily life and amidst our daily
duties. Speaking for myself, I am bound to say that
I have felt an acquaintance with the general spirit of Indian
philosophy as a blessing from my very youth, being
strengthened by it against all the antinomies of being and
thinking, and nerved in all the encounters with the scep-
ticism and materialism of our own ephemeral philosophy.
It is easy, no doubt, to discover blemishes in the form and
style of Indian philosophy, I mean chiefly the Vedanta'
and to cite expressions which at first sight seem absurd.
But there are such blemishes and such absurdities in all
philosophies, even in the most modern. Many people have
smiled at the Platonic ideas, at the atoms of Democritus, or
at the location of the soul in the pineal gland or in certain
parts of the brain ; yet all this belongs to the history of
philosophy, and had its right place in it at the right time.
What the historian of philosophy has to do is first of all to
try to understand the thoughts of great philosophers, then
to winnow what is permanent from what is temporary,
and to discover, if possible, the vein of gold that runs
through the quartz, to keep the gold, and to sweep away
the rubbish. Why not do the same for Indian philosophy ?
Why not try to bring it near to us, however far removed
from it we may seem at first sight. In all other countries
philosophy has railed at religion and religion has railed at
philosophy. In India alone the two have always worked
together harmoniously, religion deriving its freedom from
philosophy, philosophy gaining its spirituality from re-
ligion. Is not that something to make us think, and to
remind us of the often-repeated words of Terence, Humani
nihtt a me alienum puto ? A rich kernel is often covered
by a rough skin, and true wisdom may be hiding where we
least expect it,
4IO INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Ved&nta on Sphofa.
We have now to see what the other systems of philo-
sophy have to say on this subject, for it is quite clear that
the idea of a Spho£a, though known to them, was not ac-
cepted by all. oflCmkara, as representing the Vedanta-philo-
sophy, is entirely opposed to the admission of a Spho£a.
He fully admits that earth and all the rest were created
according to the words earth, &c., which were present to
the mind of the Creator, but he asks, how were these words
present ? Beginning as usual with the Purvapakshin l or
opponent, he produces as arguments in favour of the admis-
sion of a Sphotfa, that the letters cannot convey the meaning,
because as soon as they are pronounced they perish, because
they differ according to the pronunciation of each speaker,
because they possess neither singly nor collectively any
significative power, because not even the last letter with
the impression left by the preceding letter in our memory,
would convey to us the sense of a word. Hence something
different from the letters must be admitted, the Spho£a, the
outburst of the whole word, presenting itself all at once as
the object of our mental act of apprehension. That Spho£a
is what is eternal, different therefore from perishable and
changeable letters, and it is that Spho£a from which what-
ever is denoted by it was produced in creation, an$ which
_in conversation conveys to others what is in our own rpind,
but always clothed in sound.
$amkara himself, however, considers such an admission
of a Sphotfa entirely unnecessary, and, in order to prove
this, he goes back and calls to his aid an old Vedantist,
Upavarsha, whom he refers to elsewhere also (III, 3, 53) 2.
This Upavarsha argues that the letters by themselves con-
stitute the word, because though they perish as fast as they
are pronounced, they are always recognised again as the
same letters, not only as belonging to the same class, but
1 Ved. Sutras i, 3, 28. This is one of the cases where the Piirvapaksha,
the opponent's view, has boon mistaken for Samkara's own final opinion,
or for the Siddhanta.
8 Here Samkara charges oauarasvamin, the famous commentator on
the Purva-Mimaw&a, I, IT 5, with having borrowed an argument from
Badarayana.
VEDANTA ON SPHO^A. 411
as actually the same. Thus when the word cow is pro-
nounced twice, we do not think that two words have been
pronounced, but that the same word has been pronounced
twice. And though two individuals may, no doubt, pro-
nounce the same word differently, such differences are due
to the organs of pronunciation, and not to the intrinsic
nature of the letters. He holds that the apprehension of
difference depends on external factors, but that their recog-
nition is due only to the intrinsic nature of the letters. The
sound which enters the ear (Dhvani) may be different, strong
or weak, high or low, but the letters through all this are
recognised as the same. And if it be said that the letters
of a word, being several, cannot form the object of one
mental act, this is not so, because the ideas which we have
of a row, or a wood, or an army, show that things which
comprise several unities can become objects of one and the
same act of cognition. And if it be asked why groups of
letters such as Pika and Kapi should convey different
meanings, viz. cuckoo and ape, we have only to look at
a number of ants, which as long as they move one after
another in a certain order, convey the idea of a row, but
cease to do so if they are scattered about at random,
Without adducing further arguments, /Samkara in the
end maintains that the admission of a Spho£a is unneces-
sary, and that it is simpler to accept the letters of a word
as having entered into a permanent connection with a de-
finite sense, and as always presenting themselves in a definite
order to our understanding, which, after apprehending the
several letters, finally comprehends the entire aggregate as
conveying a definite sense. We never perceive a Sphotfa,
he argues, and if the letters are supposed to manifest the
Spho£a, the Sphofo in turn would have to manifest the
sense. It would even be preferable to admit that letters
form a genus, and as such are eternal, but in either case
we should gain nothing by the Spho£a that we could not
have without it, by the admission of eternal words from
which all non-eternal things, such as gods, cows, and horses,
originated. Hence we see that, though the theory of the
Sphotfa is rejected by the Vedanta, the eternal character of
the words is strenuously retained, being considered essential,
412 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
as it would seem, in order to maintain the identity of
Brahman and the Word, and the creation of the world by
Brahman in accordance with the eternal words.
Yoga and Sflwwkhya on 8pho£a.
The Yoga-philosophy accepted the theory of the Spho£a,
nay it has been supposed to have first originated it J, for,
according to the commentary, it was against the Yoga
philosophers, rather than against the Mim&msa, that
Kapila's objections concerning the SphoZa were directed.
What Kapila says about Spho£a i&of much the same char-
acter as what he had said about Isvara, the Lord, namely
that its existence cannot be proved, not that it does not
exist. If Sphotfa, he says, is meant for the group of letters
forming a .word, then why not be satisfied with this, and
simply speak of a word (Pada), as manifesting its sense ?
Why invent something which has never been perceived,
and which exists as little apart from the letters as a forest
exists apart from the trees, what is in fact entirely gratuitous
(V,57).
Nor are the letters, from Kapila's point of view, eternal
(V, 58), because, as Badaraya^a also remarked, we can wit-
ness their production ; and our being able to recognise them
as the same, proves no more than their belonging to one and
the same genus, but not their being eternal.
It is curious to* observe the elaborateness with which
what seems to us a purely grammatical question is dis-
cussed in the various schools of Indian philosophy. The
Sphotfa, however, is to Indian thinkers not merely a gram-
matical problem ; it is distantly connected with the question
of the eternity of the Veda. This eternity is denied by
Kapila (Samkhya V, 46) because the Vedas speak of them-
selves as having been produced in such passages as : ' He
became heated, and from him, thus heated, the three Vedas
were produced.' Eternity of the Veda can therefore, ac-
cording to Kapila, mean no more than an unbeginning and
unbroken continuity, so that even at the beginning of a new
creation the order of words in the Veda remains the same
as before. But if, as Nyaya and Vaiseshika maintain, this
1 Garbe. S&wkhya-Philosophie, p. 1 1 1 u.
NY£YA ON SPHO^A. 413
Veda was the work of a personal being, such as Isvara, this
is declared impossible by Kapila, because, as he holds, such
an Isvara has never been proved to exist. For he holds that
the Lord or Isvara could only have been either a liberated
or an unliberated Purusha. Now a liberated Purusha, such
as Vishwa for instance, could not have composed this enor-
mous Veda, because he is free from all desires, nor could an
active, non-liberated Purusha have been the author, because
he would not have possessed the omniscience required for
such a work.
But we must not conclude that, because we know of no
possible personal author, therefore the Veda is eternal, in
the same way as germs and sprouts. What is called the
work of a personal being always presupposes a corporeal
person, and it presupposes a will. We should not call the
mere breathing of a person in sleep, a personal work. But
the Vedas, as we read, rise spontaneously like an exhalation
from the Highest Being, not by any effort of will, but by
some miraculous virtue. It must not be supposed that the
words of the Veda are manifested, like the notes of birds,
without any purpose or meaning. No, they are the means
of right knowledge, and their innate power is proved by
the wonderful effects which are produced, for instance, by
medical formulas taken from the Ayur-veda. This is the
same argument which .was used in the Nyaya-Sutras II, 68,
as a tangible and irrefutable proof of the efficiency of the
Vedas. Here all would depend on the experimental proof3
and this the Hindus, ancient or modern, would find it diffi-
cult to supply ; but if tiie Hindus were satisfied, we have no
reason to find fault.
Hyfcya on Sphofe.
If now we turn to the Nyaya-philosophy we find that
Gotarna also denies the eternity of sound, because, it is
argued, we can see that it has a beginning or cause, because
it is an object of sense-perception, and because it is known
to be factitious. Besides, if sound were eternal, we should
be able to perceive it always, even before it is uttered, there
being no known barrier between the ether and our ear (II,
3, 86). This ethereal substratum of sound is, no doubt,
414 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
intangible (II, 3, 104), but it is nevertheless a something
perceptible by one of our senses, that of hearing, and hence
it must be non-eternal. The true eternity of the Vedas
consists, according to Gotama, in the unbroken continuity of
their tradition, study, and employment, both in the Man-
vantaras and Yugas which are past and those that are still
to come, whilst their authority depends on the authority of
the most competent persons. This is the same with secular
words \ This; last admission would of course be strongly
resisted and resented by Vedanta philosophers, but it shows
at all events the freedom with which all Indian philo-
sophers were allowed to handle the ancient Sacred Books
of the country.
on Splio/a.
The Vaiseshikas lastly dp not differ much from the
Naiyayikas as to whether the Veda is eternal or not, is
authoritative or not, but they follow their own way of
reasoning. The very last Sutra of the Vaiseshika-Sastra,
X, z, 9, says: *ItAhas been declared that authoritativeness
belongs to the Amnaya (Veda) because it is uttered by
Him ' ; and this declaration is i?ound likewise in the third
Sfttra of the first book to which the final Sutra refers.
But though this Sfttra is given -twice, there attaches some
uncertainty to its meaning, because, as pointed out by the
native commentators, the. words ' because uttered by Him/
may also be translated by /because it declares it/ i.e. 'be-
cause it teaches duty (Dharma).' But in either case there
are objections, the same as those with which we are familiar
from the Purvapaksha in the Vedanta and Mmiiimsaka-
Sfttras, such as self-contradictoririess, tautology, and the
rest discovered by some critics in the text of the Vedas.
Thereupon the eternal character, too, of the Veda is called
in question, and whoever its author may have been, whether
human or divine, it is doubted whether he can justly claim
any authority.
In answer to this sweeping condemnation the Vaiseshika
points out VI, i, J, ' that at all events there is in the Veda
na's Commentary <m flu- Ny&ya. p. 91, eel. Biblioth. Indica,
Muir, O. S."T., III. }>. 115.
INDRIYAS, SENSES. 415
a construction of sentences consequent upon intelligence/
or as we should say, the Veda must at least be admitted
to be the work of a rational author, and not of an author
of limited intelligence, because no merely rational author
could propound such a rule as * He who desires paradise,
should sacrifice/ Such matters could not be known in their
causes and effects to men of limited knowledge like our-
selves. Whatever we may think of this -argument, it shoves
at all events the state of mind of the earliest defenders of
revelation. They argued that, because the author must at
least be admitted to 'have been a rational being, he could
not possibly have declared things that are beyond the
knowledge of ordinary rational beings, such as the rewards
of sacrifices in another world, and other matters beyond the
ken of experience. The Vaiseshikas admitted a persona]
author of the Veda, an tsvara, but this by no means in-
volved the eternity of the Veda. With the Vaiseshikcis,
also, the eternity of the Veda meant no more than its
uninterrupted tradition (Sarnpradaya), but some further
supports to its authority were found in the fact that.
besides being the work of a rational being, in this case
of fsvara, the Lord, it had been accepted as the highest
authority by a long line of the great or greatest men who
themselves might safely be regarded, if not as infallible, at
least a&, trust worthy and authoritative.
Prameyas, Objects of Hiaowlectg-e.
If now, after an examination of the various opinions
entertained by the Nyaya and other Hindu philosophers
of the significative power of words, we return to the SMras
of Gotama, we find that, in his third book, he is chiefly
concerned with the Prameyas. that is, the objects of know-
ledge, as established by the Prarna/nas ; and the first ques-
tion that meets us is whether the senses or Indriyas, the
instruments of objective knowledge, should be treated as
different from the Atman, the Self, or not.
Indriyas,
Gotama holds that they are different from the Atman ;
and in order to prove this, he argues, that if each sense
41 6 INIJIAN PHILOSOPHY.
could perceive by itself, each sense would perceive its own
object only, the ear sound, the eye colour, the skin warmth,
&c.; and that therefore what perceives all these impres-
sions together, at the same time and in the same object,
must^be something different from the several senses, namely
the Atman, or, according to other systems, the Manas or
mind.
£arlra, Body.
Next follows the question whether the body is the same
as the Atman, a question which would never occur to
a Vedantist. But Gotama asks it and solves it in his
own way. It cannot be, he says, because, when the body
has once been destroyed by being burnt, the consequences
of good and evil deeds would cease to pursue the Self
through an endless series of births and rebirths. A
number of similar objections and answers follow, all
showing how much this question had occupied the thoughts
of the Nyaya philosophers. Some of them suggest difficul-
ties which betray a very low state of philosophical reason-
ing, while other difficulties are such that even in our own
time they have not ceased to perplex minute philosophers.
We meet with the question why, with the dual organ of
vision, there is no duality of perception ; why, if memory
is supposed to be a quality or mode of the Self, mere
remembrance of an acid substance can ma>ke our mouth
water. After these questions have been, if not solved, at
least carefully considered, Gotama goes on to show that if
the body be not Atman, neither can Manas, mind, be con-
ceived as the Atman.
Manas, Mind.
The Self is the kriower, while the mind or Manas is only
the instrument (Karar^a) of knowledge by which attention
is fixed on one thing at a time. The Self is eternal, not of
this life only, without beginning and therefore without
end. And here a curious argument is brought in, different
from the usual Indian arguments in support of our previous
existence, to show that our Self does not begin with our
birth on earth, because, as lie says, the smile of a new-born
child can only arise from memory of a previous experience.
MANAS, MIND. 417
.
White our modern psycho-physiologists vouia probably
see in the smiles or the cries of a new-born child a reflex
action of the muscles, our Indian objector declares that such
movements are to be considered as no more than the open-
ing and closing of a lotus-flower. And when this view has
been silenced by the remark that a child does not consist
of the five elements only, is not in fact, as we should say
a mere vegetable, a new argument of the same character ie
adduced, namely the child's readiness to suck, which can
only be accounted for, they say, by the child having, in
a former life, acquired a desire for milk. When this again
has been rejected as no arguments because we see that iron
also moves towards a magnet, Gotarna answers once more
that a child cannot be treated like a piece of iron. And
when, as a last resource, desire in general, as manifested
by a child, is appealed to as showing a child's previous
existence, and when this also has once more been answered
by the remark that a child, like every other substance,
must be possessed of qualities, Gotama finally dismisses all
these objectors by maintaining that desires are not simply
qualities, but can arise from experience and previous
impressions (Sa7>ikalpa) only.
The consideration of the body and of the substances of
which it consists, whether of earth only, or of three
elements, earth, water and fire, or of four, earth, water,
fire and air, or of five, because it displays 'the qualities of
the five, is naturally of small interest in our time. The
i final solution only deserves our attention, in so far as it
clearly shows that the Nyaya also recognised in some cases
the authority of the Veda as supreme, by stating that the
body is made of earth, and why? '/Srutipr&rn&^yat,'
' because scripture says so/
What follows, the discussion of sight or of the visual ray
proceeding from the eye, and the question whether we
possess one general sense only, or many, may contain
curious suggestions for the psycho-physiologist ; but there
is little of what we mean by really philosophic matter in ii.
The qualities assigned to the objects of perception are not
very different from what they are supposed to be in the
other systems of philosophy, and they may be passed
27
41 8 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
by here ail the more because they will have to be1 con-
sidered more fully when we come to examine the Vaiseshika
system.
More interesting is the discussion which occupies the rest
of the third book. It is chiefly concerned with the nature
of Self (Atman), the mind (Manas), the difference between
the two, and their relation to knowledge. Here we should
remember that, according to I, 15, Buddhi (understanding),
Upalabdhi (apprehension), and (?/1&na (knowledge) are used
synonymously. Though there are many manifestations of
Manas,, such as memory, inference, verbal testimony, doubt,
imagination, dreaming, cognition, guessing, feeling of]
pleasure, desire, and all the rest, yet its distinguishing
feature, we are told, is what we should call attention, or as
Gotama explains it (I, 16), * the preventing of knowledge
arising altogether.' This is declared to be due to attention,
and in many cases this would be the best rendering of
Manas. Manas is therefore often called the doorkeeper,
preventing sensations from rushing in promiscuously and
all at once. If therefore we translate Manas by mind, we
must always remember its technical meaning in Indian
philosophy, and its being originally different from Buddhi,
understanding, which might often be rendered by light or
the internal light that changes dark and dull impressions
into clear and bright sensations, perceptions, and knowledge
in general, or by understanding, at least so far as it enables
us to transform and understand the dull impressions of the '
senses.
The difference between the philosophical nomenclatures
in English and Sanskrit for the Manas and its various,
functions is so great that a translation is almost impossible,
and I am by no means satisfied with my own. It should
also be remembered that the same Sanskrit term has often:
very different meanings in different systems of philosophy.
The Buddhi of the Ny&ya philosophers, for instance, is
totally different from the Buddhi of the Sarakhyas. Their
Buddhi is eternal, while the Buddhi of Gotama is distinctly
declared to be non-eternal. The Buddhi of the Samkhya
is a cosmic principle independent of the Self, and meant to j
account for the existence of the light of reason in the whole !
MEMORY, 419
universe; while in the Nyaya-philosophy it signifies the
subjective activity of thought in the acquisition of know-
ledge, or in the lighting up and appropriating of the inert
impressions received by the senses. This knowledge can
come to an end and vanish by f orgetfulness, while an eternal
essence, like the Buddhi of the Samkhyas, though it may
be ignored, can never be destroyed.
Atman.
In answering the question, What is knowledge, Gotama
declares in this place quite clearly that real knowledge
belongs to the Atman only, the Self or the soul. It cannot
belong to the senses and their objects (Indriyartha), because
knowledge abides even when the senses and what they
perceive have been suppressed. Nor does knowledge
belong to the Manas, which is but the instrument of know-
ledge, but it arises from the conjunction of Atman (Self)
with Manas (attention), and on the other side of Manas
with Indriyas (senses). Manas is the instrument, and the
wielder of that instrument, like the wielder of an axe,
must be some one different from it ; this, according to the
Ny&ya, can only be the Self who in the end knows, who
remembers, who feels pain and pleasure, who desires and
acts.
Memory.
Memory, Smriti, has not received from Indian philo-
sophers the attention which it deserves. If it is treated as
a means of knowledge, it falls under Anubhava, which is
either immediate or mediate, and then called Smriti. Every
Anubhava is supposed to leave an impression or modifica-
tion of the mind, which is capable of being revived. There
is another manifestation of memory in the act of remember-
ing or recognising, as when on seeing a man we say, This is
he, or This is Devadatta. Here we have Anubhava, know-
ledge of this, joined with something else, namely he or
Devadatta, a revived Samskara, impression, or Sm?vti. The
subject of memory is more fully treated in III, 113, and the
various associations which awaken memory are enumerated
as follows : —
420 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
1. Attention to an object perceived ;
2. Connection, as when the word Pram&Tia, p/oof, recalls
^rameya, what has to be proved ;
3. Repetition, as when crie has learned a number of thing?
together, one calls up the other ;
4. A sign, as when a thing recalls its sine qua non ;
,5. A mark, as when a standard reminds one of its
bearer;
6. Likeneas, as when one body recalls a similar bocly ,
7. Possession, as when a property reminds us of its
owner :
8. Belonging:, as when royal attendants remind us of the
king;
9. Relation, as when a disciple reminds us of the teacher,
or kine of a bull ;
10. Succession, as when the pounding 01 rice reminds one
of sprinkling ;
j i. Absence, as of a wife ;
12. Fellow- workers, as when one disciple reminds us of
the co-disciples ;
13. Opposition, as when the ichneumon recalls the
snake ;
14. Pre-eminence, as when investiture with the sacred
string recalls the principal agent, the Guru or teacher ;
15. Receiving, as when a gift reminds one of the giver;
16. Covering, as when a sword reminds one of the
sheath ;
1 7. Pleasure and pain, eacK of which recalls the occasioner
of it;
1 8. Desire and aversion, reminding us of their causes ;
19. Fear, reminding us of what is feared, such as death;
20. Want, which makes us think of those who can supply
our wants ;
21. Motion, as when a shaking branch reminds us of the
wind;
22. Affection, reminding us of a son, &c. ;
23. Merit and Demerit, which make us reflect on joys
and sorrows of a former life.
Such lists are very characteristic of Hindu philosophy,
and they show at the same time that it is a mistake to
MORE PRAMEYAS. 421
ascribe them exclusively to the Samk&ya-philosophy.
Though they do not add much to our knowledge of the
fundamental tenets of 'Indian philosophy, they show once
more how much thought had been spent in the elaboration
of mere details ; and this, as we are tolfl in this case by
the commentator himself, chiefly in order to stir up the
thoughts of the learners, /Sishyavyutpadanaya, to indepen-
dent activity.
Knowledge not Sternal.
The important point, however, which Gotama wishes to
establish is this, that knowledge, though belonging to the
eternal Self, is not in itself eternal, but vanishes like any
other act. He also guards against the supposition that as
we seem to take in more than one sensation at the same
time, as in eating a cake full of different kinds of sweets,
we ought to admit more than one Manas ; and he explains
that this simultaneousness of perception is apparent only,
just as the fiery circle is when we whirl a firebrand with
greaf. rapidity, or as we imagine that a number of palm-
leaves are pierced by a pin at one blow, and not in
succession, one after the other. Lastly, he states that the
Manas is Anu, infinitely small, or, as we should say, an
atom.
More Prameyas.
While the third book 'was occupied with the first six of
the Prameyas, or objects to be known and proved, including
the whole apparatus of knowledge, such as Atman, Self or
soul, Indriyas, senses, Manas, mind, central sensorium,
Buddhi, understanding, and $arira, body, and therefore
gave rise to some important questions not only of meta-
)hysics, but of psychology also, the fourth book which is
levoted to the remaining six Prameyas, such as (7) Pra-
vritti (activity), (8) Dosha (faults), (9) Pretyabhava (trans-
Inrigration), (10) Phala (rewards), (n) DuAkha (pain), and
J(i2) Apavarga (final beatitude), is naturally of a more
.(practical character, and less attractive to the student of
ithe problems of being and thinking. Some questions, how-
jever, are treated in it* which cannot well be passed over, if
422 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
we wish to give a full insight into the whole character, and
the practical bearing of the Nyaya-philosophy.
Though this philosophy is supposed to represent Indian
logic only, we have already seen enough of it to know that
it included almost every question within the sphere of
philosophy and religion, and that its chief object was the
same as that of all the other systems of Indian philosophy,
namely salvation.
Life after Death.
One of the seven interesting subjects treated here
is Pretyabhava, literally existence after having departed
this life, and this is proved in a very short way. As the
Self has been proved to be eternal, Gotama says (IV, 10) it
follows that it will exist after what is called death. Some
of the objections made to this tenet are easily disposed of,
but nothing is said to establish what is meant by trans-
migration, that is being born again in another world as
either a human or as some other animal being, or even as
a plant.
Existence of Deity.
Another important subject, if it is not passed over alto-
gether, is treated by Gotama, as it was by Kapila, inci-
dentally only, I mean the existence of a Deity. It comes
in when a problem of the Buddhists is under discussion .
namely, whether the world came out of nothing, and
whether the manifestation of anything presupposes the
destruction of its cause. This is illustrated by the f act-
that the seed has to perish before the flower can appear.
But Gotama strongly denies this, and reminds the opponent
that if the seed were really destroyed by being pounded or
burnt, the flower would never appear. Nor could it be
said that the flower, if it had not existed previously,
destroyed the seed, while, if it had, it would have owed its
existence to the simple destruction of the seed. Therefore,
he continues, as nothing can be produced from nothing, nor
from an annihilated something, like a seed, the world also
cannot have sprung from nothingness, but requires the
admission of an Lsvara, the Lord, as its real cause. And
CAUSE AND EFFECT. 423
this admission of an tsvara, even though in the capacity
of a governor rather than of a maker of the world, is con-
firmed by what was evidently considered by Gotama as
a firmly established truth, namely, that every act of man
invariably produces its result, though not by itself, but
under the superintendence of some one, that is, of Isvara.
We then meet with a new argument, different from that of
the Mim&'msakas, namely that, if work done continued to
work- entirely by itself, the fact that some good or evil
deeds of men do not seem to receive their reward would
remain unaccounted for. This is certainly a curious way
of proving tl 3 existence of God by the very argument
which has generally been employed by those who want to
orove His non-existence. Gotarna's real ^object, however,
is to refute the Buddhist theory of vacuity (/Sftnya), or of
Nothing being the cause of the world, and afterwards to
disprove the idea that effects can ever be fortuitous. And
as Gotama differs from Gautama in denying the origin of
the world out of nothing, he also differs from the Samkhya
philosophers, who hold that all things, as developed out of
Prakriti, are real only so long as they are noticed by the
Purusha. He holds, on the contrary, that some things are
real and eternal, but others are not, because we actually
see both their production and their destruction. If we
were to doubt this, we should doubt what has been settled
by the authority of all men, and there would be an end of
all truth and untruth. This 1 is a novel kind of argument
for an Indian philosopher to use, and shows that with all
the boldness of their speculations they were not so entirely
different from ourselves, and not entirely indifferent to the
Securu8 judicat or bis terrarum.
Cause and Effect.
If, however, we call the Nyaya-philosophy theistic, we
should always remember that such terms as theistic and
atheistic are hardly applicable to Indian philosophy in the
sense in which they are used by Christian theologians.
With us atheistic implies the denial of a supreme and
1 SHrvalf»ukikapram&tva.
424 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
absolute Being , but we saw that even the so-called atneism
of the Samkhya-philosophy does not amount to that. It is
simply the denial of an tsvara, as an active and persopal
creator and ruler of the world.
And even such a personal God is not altogether denied
by the Samkhyas ; they only deny that He can be proved
to exist by human arguments, and it* He exists as such,
tht>y hold that in the eyes of philosophers He would be but
a phenomenal manifestation of the Godhead, liable to
change, liable even to temporary disappearance at the end
of each aeon, and to reappearance at the beginning of
a new aeon. It is this kind of a divine being, a personal
Isvara or Lord, that is taken for granted by the Nyaya
philosophers, and, it may be added at once, by the Vaise-
shika philosophers also ].
In the Tarka-Samgraha, for instance, it is distinctly
stated that l the Atman or Self is twofold, the (rivatman
(personal Self), and the Paramatman (the Highest Self)/
It must not be supposed, however, that Isvara, the omni-
scient Lord, is Patamatman, which is one only, while the
Crivatman is separate for each individual body, all-per-
vading and eternal. Though Paramatman is Isvara, Isvara
is not Paramatman, but a phenomenal manifestation of
Paramatman only. The argument which we met with
before is fully stated in Catania's Sutras, IV, 19-21. The
actions of men, it is said, do not always produce an effect,
Good actions do not always produce good results, nor bad
action ,s bad results, as they ought, if every act continued to
act (Karman). Hence there must be another power that
modifies the continuous acting of acts, and that can be
Isvara only. It is not denied thereby that human actions
are required, and that no effects would take place without
the working of human agents, only they are not the sole
cause of what happens, but we require another power, an
Isvara, to account for what would otherwise be irrational
results of human actions.
Baliantyne, Christianity contrasted with Hindu Philosophy, p. 12 :
Muir, O. S. T., vol. iii, p. 133.
EMANCIPATION. 425
Fhala, Stewards.
We now come to the tenth of the Prameyas, Phala ; and
here the same subject is treated once more, though from
a different point of view. It is asked, how are effects,
rewards or punishments, possible in another life ? As both
good and evil works are done in this life, the cause, namely
these works, would have ceased to exist long before their
fruit Is to be gathered. This objection is met by an illus-
tration taken from a tree which bears fruit long after it
has ceased to be watered. The objector is not, however,
satisfied with this, but, on the contrary, takes a bolder
step, and denies that any effect either is or is not, at
the same time. Gotama is not to be frightened by this
apparently Buddhistic argument, but appeals again to what
we should call the common-sense view of the matter,
namely, that we actually see production and destruction
before our very eyes. We can see every day that a cloth,
before it has been woven, does not exist, for no weaver
would say that the threads are the cloth, or the cloth the
threads. And if it should be argued that the 'fruit pro-
duced by a tree is different from the fruit of our acts,
because there is no receptacle (Asraya) or, as we should
say, no subject, this is met by the declaration that, in the
case of good or bad acts, there is a permanent receptacle,
namely the Self, which alone is capable of perceiving pain
or joy in this or in any other state of existence.
Emancipation
After examining the meaning of pain, and expressing his
conviction that everything, even pleasure, is full of pain,
Gotarna ab last approaches the last subject, emancipation
(Apavarga). He begins as usual with objections, such as
that it is impossible in this life to pay all our moral debts,
that certain sacrificial duties are enjoined as incumbent on
us to the end of our lives, and that if it is said that a man
is freed from these by old age, this does not imply that,
even when he is no longer able to perform his daily duties,
he should not perform certain duties, if in thought only.
If, therefore, good works continue, there will be rewards
426 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
for them, in fact there will be paradise, though even this
would really have to be looked upon as an obstacle to real
emancipation. Nothing remains but a complete extinction
of all desires, and this can be effected by knowledge of the
truth only. Therefore knowledge of 'the truth or removal
of all false notions, is the beginning and end of all philo-
sophy, and of the Nyaya-philosophy in particular. The
first step towards this is the cessation of Aha,mkara, here
used in the sense of personal feelings, such as desire for
a beautiful and aversion to a deformed object. Desire
therefore has to be eradicated and aversion also ; but before
he explains how this desire, wrhich arises from false appre-
hension (Mithyagwaiia) can be eradicated, Gotama is carried
back once more to a subject which had been discussed
before, namely whether the objects of desire exist as wholes
or as parts. And this leads him on to what is the distin-
guishing doctrine both of the Nyaya and of the Vaiseshika-
philosophies, namely the admission of Anus or atoms. If
wholes are constantly divided and subdivided, we should
in the end be landed in nihilism, but this is not to be.
There cannot be annihilation because the A-nus or the
smallest parts are realities (IV, 8-82), and, according to
their very nature, cannot be further reduced or compressed
out of being. Against this view of the existence of what we
should call atoms, the usual arguments are then adduced,
namely that ether (or space) is everywhere, and therefore
in an atom also, and if an atom has figure or a without and
a within, it is of necessity divisible. In reply, ether is said
to be intangible, neither resistant nor obstructing, that is,
neither occupying space against others, nor preventing
others from occupying space ; and in the end an appeal is
made to a recognised maxim of Hindu philosophy, that
there must never be a regressio in infinity m,) as there would
be in attempting to divide an atom.
Knowledge of Ideas, not of Things.
And now the opponent, again, it would seem, a E'iddhist,
makes a still bolder sweep by denying the existence of any
external things. All we have is knowledge, he says, not
things; nothing different from our knowledge, or inde-
SYLLOGISM. 427
pendent of our knowledge, can exist for us. Gotama
objects to this (Vidyamatra) doctrine, first of all because, if
it were impossible to prove the existence of any external
things, it would be equally impossible to prove their non-
existence. And if an appeal were made to dreams, or
visions produced by a mirage, or by jugglery, it should be
remembered that dreams also, like • remembrances, presup-
pose previous perception of things ; and that even in mis-
taking we mistake something, so that false knowledge can
always be removed by true knowledge. After granting
that, one more question arises, how that true knowledge,
if once gained, is to be preserved, because we saw that
knowledge is not eternal, but vanishes. And here the
Nyaya suddenly calls the Yoga to its aid, and teaches that
Samadhi or intense meditation will prove a safe preserva-
tive of knowledge, in spite of all disturbances from without,
while the Nyaya-philosophy retains its own peculiar use-
fulness as' employed in the defence of truth against all
comers, in which case even such arts as wrangling and
cavilling may prove of service.
This may seem a very humble view to take with regard
to a system of philosophy which at the very outset promised
to its students final beatitude as the highest reward. But
considering the activity of philosophical speculation, of
which- we have had so many indications in the ancient as
well asjn the modern history of India, we can well under-
stand that philosophers, skilled in all the arts and artifices
of reasoning, would secure for their system that high posi-
tion which the Nyaya certainly held and still holds1 among
the recognised systems of orthodox philosophy. It would
be useless to go once more over the topics from £?ati,
futility, No. XIV, to No, XVI, Nigrahasthana, objectionable
proceedings, which are fully treated in the fifth book.
Syllogism.
There is one subject, however, which requires some more
special consideration, namely the Syllogism, or the Five
Members, treated as VII. This has always excited the
1 Cowell, Report on the Toles 01 ^ uddea, 1867.
428 TtfDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
special interest of European logicians on account of certain
startling similarities which no doubt exist between it and
the syllogism of Aristotle and the schoolman. But from
a Hindu point of view this syllogism or even logic in
general is by no means the chief object of the Nyaya-
philosophy, nor is it its exclusive property. It has been
tully discussed in the Vedanta and S&mkhya systems, and
on<& more in the Vaiseshika ; but as it forms the pride of
the Ny£ya, it will find its most appropriate place here l.
As we saw colour mentioned as the distinguishing quality
of light, we found knowledge put forward as the char-
acteristic feature of Self. The Nyaya looks upon know-
ledge as inseparably connected with the Self, though in the
larger sense of being the cause of every conception that has
found expression in language. Knowledge, according to
the Nyaya, is either perception or remembrance. Percep-
tion again is twofold, right or wrong. Right perception
represents a thing such as it is, silver as silver. This is called
truth, Prama. Wrong perception represents a thing as it
is not, mother-of-pearl as silver.
This right perception, according to the Nyaya-philosophy
is, as we saw, of four kinds, sensuous, inferential, com-
parative, and authoritative, and is produced by perception,
by inference, by comparison, and by revealed authority.
Here we are brought back to the Pramanas again which
were discussed in the beginning, but among which one,
Anumana or inference, receives here a more special treat-
ment. We are thus obliged, in following the Sdtras, to
go over some of the ground again. Different systems of
philosophy differed, as we saw, in the number of Pram&ftas
which they admit, according to what each considers the
only trustworthy channels of knowledge.
Pram&nas in different Philosophical Schools.
One, Perception : .ATarv&kas.
Two, Perception and inference: Vaiseshikas arid Buddhists.
1 See M. M., Appendix to Archbishop Thomson's Laws of Thought j
also Die Theorie df-s indischeu Rationaliaten von den Erkenninissmitteln,
von R. Gar be, 1888.
PRAMAJ^AS IN DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS. 429
Three, Perception, inference, and word (revelation)
Four, Perception, inference, revelation, and comparison
Naiy&yikas.
Five, Perception, inference, revelation, comparison, and
presumption : Prabh&kara (a Mim&rasaka)
Six, Perception, inference, revelation, comparison, pre-
sumption, and not-being : MimUmsakas.
Otners admit also Aitihya, tradition, Sambhava, equiva-
lence, Keshth, gesture.
After sensuous knowledge, which take? cognisance of
substances, qualities, and actions, has been examined, the
question arises, how can we know things which are not
brought to us by the senses? How do we know, for
instance, that there is fire which we cannot see in a moun-
tain, or that a mountain is a volcano, when all that we do
see is merely that the mountain smokes? We should
remember that there were three kinds of Anum&na (Ny&ya-
S&tras II, 37) called Pftrvavat, having the sign before, or
as the ' cause, $eshavat, having the sign after or as the
effect, and S£rn&nyatodrish£a, seen together. In the first
cla-ss the sign of past rain was the swelling of rivers ; in
the second the sign of coming rain was the ants carrying
off their eggs ; in the third the sign of the motion of the
sun was its being seen in different places. Knowledge of
things unseen, acquired in these three ways, is called in-
ferential knowledge (Anum&na), and in order to arrive at
it, we are told that we must be in possession of what is
called a Vy&pti. This, as we saw, was the most important
word in an Indian syllogism. Literally it means pervasion.
Vy£pta meanp pervaded ; Vy&pya, what must be pervaded ;
Vy&paka, wjb^t pervades. This expression, to pervade, is
used by logicians in the sense of invariable, inseparable or
universal concomitance. Thus sea-water is always per-
vaded by saltness, it is inseparable from it, and in this
aense Vy&pya, what is to be pervaded, came to be used
for whatJ we should call the middle term in a syllogism.
Vy&pti, or invariable Concomitance, may sometimes be
taken as a general rule, or even as a general law, in some
cases it is simply the sine qud non. It is such a Vy&pti,
430 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
for instance, that smoke is pervaded by 01 invariably con-
nected with fire, or, as the Hindus say, that smokiness is
pervaded by fieriness, not, however, fieriness by smokiness.
We arrive by induction at the Vyapti that wherever there
is smoke, there is lire, but not that wherever there is fire,
there is smoke. The latter Vy&pti in order to be true
would require a condition or Upadhi, viz. that the firewood
should be moist. If we once are in possession of a true
Vy&pti as smokiness being pervaded by fieriness, we only
require what is called groping or consideration (Paramarsa)
in order to make the smoke, which we see rising from the
mountain, a Paksha or member of our Vyapti, such as
'wherever there is smoke, there is fire.' The conclusion
then follows that this mountain which shows smoke, must
have fire.
All this may sound very clumsy to European logicians,
but it would have been easy enough to translate it into
our own more technical language. We might easily clothe
KaTiada in a Grecian garb and make him look almost" like
Aristotle. Instead of saying that inferential knowledge
arises from discovering in an object something which is
always pervaded by something else, and that the pervading
predicate is predicable of all things of which the pervaded
predicate is, we might have said that our knowledge that
b is P arises from discovering that S is M, and M iS P, or
with Aristotle, 6 (rv\\oyi<rp.bs 6ta rov ^aov TO anpov ra> rptra)
bctKwa-iv. What KaTiada call& one member of the pervasion,
Paksha, e.g. the smoking mountain, might have been trans-
lated by subject or terminus minor] what pervades,
Vyapaka or Sadhya, e. g. fieriness, by predicate or terminus
major; and what is to be pervaded, Vyapy a, i.e. smokiness,
by terminus medius. But what should we have gained
by this ? AH that is peculiar to Indian logic would have
evaporated, and the remainder might have been taken for
a clumsy imitation of Aristotle. Multa fiunt eadem, sed
aliter, and it is this very thing, this aliter, that constitutes
the principal charm of a comparative study of philosophy.
Even such terms as syllogism or conclusion are incon-
venient here, because they have with us an historical
Colouring and may throw a false light on the subject. The
ANUMANA FOR OTHERS. 43!
Sanskrit Anumara is not exactly the Greek
but it means measuring something by means of something
else. This is done by what we may call syllogism, but
what the Hindus describe as Paramarsa or groping or
trying to find in an object something which can be measured
by something else or what can become the member of
a pervasion. This corresponds in fact to the looking for
a terminus medius. In Kapila's system (1, 61) the principal
object -of inference is said to be transcendent truth that is,
truth which transcends the horizon of our senses. Things
which cannot be seen with our eyes, are known by in-
ference, as fire is, when what is seen is smoke only.
Gotama therefore defines the result of inference (I, 101) as
knowledge of the connected, that is, as arising from the
perception of a connection or a law. But, again, the rela-
tion of what pervades and what is pervaded is very different
from what we should call the relative extension of two
concepts. This will become more evident as we proceed.
For the present we must remember that in the case before
us the act of proving by means of Anurnana consists in our
knowing that there is in the mountain something always
pervaded by, or inseparable from something else, in our
case, smoke always pervaded by fire, and that therefore the
mountain, if it smokes, has fire.
By this process we arrive at Anumiti, the result of
Anumana, or inferential knowledge, that the mountain is
a volcano. So much for the inference for ourselves. Next
follows the inference for others.
Annm&na for Others.
What follows is taken from Annambha^a's Compendium.
'The act of concluding/ he says, 'is twofold, it being
intended either for one's own benefit or for the benefit of
others. The former is the means of arriving at knowledge
for oneself, and the process is this. By repeated observa-
tion, as in the case of kitchen hearths and the like, we are
reminded of a rule (Vy£pti), such as that wherever we
have seen smoke, we have seen fire. We now approach
a mountain and wonder whether there may or may not be
fire in it. We see the smoke, we remember the rule, and
432 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY,
immediately perceive that the mountain itself is fierv This
is the process when we reason for ourselves.
But if we have to convince somebody else of whrt we,
by inference, know to be true, the case is different We
then start with the assertion, The mountain is fiery, We
are asked, Why? and we answer, Because it smokes.
We then give our reason, or the major premiss, that all
that smokes is fiery, as you may see, for instance, on a
kitchen hearth and the like. Now you perceive that the
mountain does smoke, and hence you will admit that I was
right when I said that the mountain is fiery. This is called
the fivermembered form of exposition, and the five members
are severally called *, —
(i) Assertion (Prati#/?H), the mountain has fire;
(Q.) Reason (Hetu 2), because it has smoke ,
(3) Instance (Ud&harana or Nidarsana), look at the
kitchen hearth, and remember the Vy&pti between smoke
and fire ;
(4) Application (Upanaya), and the mountain has smoke ;
(5) Conclusion (Nigamana), therefore it has fire V
In both cases the process of inference is the same, but
the second is supposed to be more rhetorical, more per-
suasive, and therefore more useful in controversy.
What is called by Annambhafta the conclusion for
oneself, corresponds totidem verbis to the first form of
Aristotle's syllogism: —
All that smokes is fiery,
The mountain smokes;
Therefore the mountain is fiery.
We must not forget, however, that whatever there is
of formal Logic in these short extracts, has but one object
with Gotama, that of describing knowledge as one of the
qualities of the Self, and as this knowledge is not confined
to sensuous perceptions, Gotama feit it incumbent on him
to explain the nature and prove the legitimacy of the in-
ferential kind of knowledge also It is not so much logic
1 ny&ya-Sutras I, 39.
8 Synonyms of Hetu are Apade** T.iwisa. Framana, and Karana.
Vai*eshika-Sutras IX, a, 4.
3 The Vaiseshika terms are (i) Pratigrfta, (a) Apade«a, (3) Nidarsana,
(4) Anusawdhana, (5) Pratyamnaya.
ANUMiNA FOR OTHERS. 433
as ii is noetic that interested KaTiada. He was clearly
aware of the inseparability of inductive and deductive
reasoning The formal logician, from the time of Aris-
totle to our own, takes a purely technical interest in the
machinery of the human mind, he collects, he arranges
and analyses the functions of our reasoning faculties, as
they fall under his observation. But the question which
occupies Gotama is, How it is that we know any thing
which we do not, nay which we cannot perceive by our
senses, in fact, how we can justify inferential knowledge.
From this point of view we can easily see that neither in-
duction nor deduction, if taken by itself, would be sufficient
for him. Deductive reasoning may in itself be most useful
for forming Vyaptis, it may give a variety of different
aspects to our knowledge, but it can never add to it. And
if on one side Gotama cannot use deduction, because it
teaches nothing new, he cannot on the other rely entirely
on induction, because it cannot teach anything ceitain or
unconditional.
The only object of all knowledge, according to Gotama,
is absolute truth or Prama. He knew as well as Aristotle
that €7rayo>y?/ in order to prove the oXcos must be 6ta -navTav,
and that this is impossible. Knowledge gained by epagogic
reasoning is, strictly speaking, always tnl TO TTO'AV, and not
what Gotama would call Prama. The conclusion, f. i., at
which Aristotle arrives by way of induction, that animals
with little bile are long-lived, might be called a Vyapti.
He arrives at it by sa"ying that man, horse, and mule (C)
are long-lived (A) ; man, horse, and mule (C) have little bile
(B); therefore all animals with little bile are long-lived.
Gotama does not differ much from this, but he would
3xpress himself in a different way. He would say, wher-
ever we see the attribute of little oile, we also see the
attribute of long life, s for instance in men, horses, mules,
&c. But there he would not stop. He would value this
Vyapti merely as a means of establishing a new rule ; he
would use it as a means of deduction and say, ' Now we
know that the elephant has little bile, therefore we know
also that he is long-lived/ Or to use another instance,
where Aristotle -says that all men are mortal. Kanada
28 *f
434 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
would say that humanity is pervaded by mortality, or that
we have never seen humanity without mortality; and
where Aristotle concludes that kings are mortal because
they belong to the class of men, Gotama, if he argued for
himself only, and not for others, would say that kinghood
is pervaded by manhood and manhood by mortality, and
therefore kings are mortal.
I*' would be easy to bring objections against this kind of
reasoning, and we shall see that Indian philosophers them-'
selves have not been slow in bringing them forward, and
likewise in answering them. One thing can be said in
favour of the Indian method. If we go on accumulating
instances to form an induction, if, as in the afore-men-
tioned case, we add horses, mules, men, and the like, we
approximate no doubt more and more to a general rule,
but we never eliminate all real, much less all possible,
exceptions. The Hindu, on the contrary, by saying,
' Wherever we have seen the attribute of little bile, we have
observed long life/ or better still, ' We have never observed
long life without the attribute of little bile/ and by then
giving a number of mere instances, and these by w&y of
illustration only, excludes the reality, though not the pos-
sibility, of exceptions. He states, as a fact, that wherever
the one has been, the other has been seen likewise, and
thus throws the onus proba/ndi as to any case to the con-
trary upon the other side. The Hindu knows the nature
of induction quite well enough to say in the very words of
European philosophers, that because in ninety-nine cases
a Vystpti1 or rule has happened to be true, it does not
follow that it will be so in the hundredth case. If it can
be proved, however, that there never has been an instance
where smoke was seen without fire,' .the mutual inherence
and inseparable connection of smoke and fire is more firmly
established than it would be by any r umber of accumulated
actual instances where the two have been seen together.
The conditions (Upadhis) under which it is allowable to
form a Vy&pti, that is to say, to form a universal rule,
have greatly occupied the thoughts of Hindu philosophers.
1 'SatasaA sahaftaritayor api vyabhi&aropalabdheA.' Anumaiiiakhanda
of Tattvafrint&mani/
ANUMANA FOB. OTHERS. 435
Volumes after volumes have Deen written on the subject,
and though they may not throw any new light on the origin
of universals, they furnish at all events a curious parallel
to the endeavours of European philosophers in defence both
of inductive and deductive thinking.
It seems hardly time as yet to begin to criticise the in-
ductive and the deductive methods as elaborated by Hindu
philosophers. We must first know them more fully. Such
objections as have hitherto been started were certainly not
unknown to Gotarna and Kanada themselves. In accord-
ance with their system of Purvapaksha and Uttarapaksha,
every conceivable objection was started by them and care-
fully analysed and answered. Thus it has been pointed
out by European philosophers that the proposition that
wherever there is smoke there is fire, would really lose its
universal character1 by the introduction of the instance,
' as on the kitchen hearth/ But the Hindu logicians also
were perfectly aware of the fact that this instance is not
essential to a syllogism. They look upon the instance
simply as a helpful reminder for controversial purposes, as
an illustration to assist the memory, not as an essential
part of the process of the proof itself. It is meant to
remind us that we must look out for a Vyapti between the
.smoke which we see, and the fire which is implied, but not
seen. It is therefore in rhetorical syllogisms or syllogisms
for others only that the instance has its proper place. In
Sfttra I, 35 Gotama says, * The third member or example
iscsome familiar case of the fact which, through its having
a character which is invariably attended by that which
is to be established, establishes (in conjunction with the
reason) the existence of that character which is to be
established/ It is Indian rhetoric therefore far more than
Indian logic that is responsible for the introduction of this
third member which Contains the objectionable instance;
and rhetoric, though it is not logic, yet, as Whately says, is
an offshoot of logic.
1 Ritter, History of Philosophy, IV, p. 365,, says that ' two members
of Kanada's -argument are evidently superfluous, while, by the intro-
duction of an example in the third, the universality of the conclusion
is vitiated.'
436 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
The fact is that Gotama cares far more £or the formation
of a Vy&pti, pervasion, than for the manner in which it
may serve hereafter as the basis of a syllogism, which must
depend on the character of the . Vy&pti. A Vy&pti was
considered as threefold in the school of Gotama, as Anvaya-
vyatireki, Kevalanvayi, and Kevala-vyatireki. The first,
the Anvaya-vyatireki, present and absent, is illustrated by
such a case as, Where there is smoke, there is fire, and
where firo is not, smoke is not. The second, or Ke\-al&n-
vayi, i.e. present only, is illustrated by such a case as,
Whatever is cognisable is nameable, where it is impossible
to bring forward anything that is not cognisable. The
third case, or Kevala-vyatireki, is illustrated by a case
such as, Earth is different from the other elements, because
it is odorous. Here we could not go on and say, all that
is different from the other elements has odour, because the
only case in point (Ud&haraTia) would again be earth.
But we have to say, what is not different from the other
elements is not odorous, as water (by itself). But this
earth is not so, is not inodorous, and therefore it is not
not-different from the other elements, but different from
them, q.e.d.
. Much attention has also been paid by Hindu philoso-
phers to the working o£ the Upadhis or conditions assigned
to a Vy&pti. Thus in the ordinary Vyapti that there is
smoke in a mountain, because there is fire, the presence of
wet fuel was an Upadhi, or indispensable condition. This
Up&dhi pervades what is to be established (S&dhya-vy&-
paka), in this case, fire, but it does not pervade what
establishes (SMhana-vyapaka), i.e. smoke, because fire is
not pervaded by or invariably accompanied by wet fuel,
as, for instance, in the case of a red-hot iron ball, where
we have really fire without smoke. Hence it would not
follow by necessity that there is fire uecause there is smoke,
or that there is no fire because there is no smoke. How
far the Indian mind may go in these minutiae of reasoning
may be seen from the following instance given by Dr. Bal-
lantyne in his Lectures on the Nyaya-philosophy, founded
chiefly on the Tarkasamgraha, p. 59 : —
* To be the constant accompanier of what is to be esta-
ANUMANA FOE OTHERS. 437
Wished (S£dhya-vyapakatva) consists in the not being the
counter-ertity (Apratiyogitva) of any absolute non-exist-
ence (Atyantabh&va) having the same subject of inhesion
(SamanadhikaraTia) as that which is to be established.
To be not the constant accompanier of the argument
(S&dhan£vy&pakatva) consists in the being the counter-
entity (Pratiyogitva) of some absolute non-existence rnot
impossibly] resident in that which possesses [the character
tendered as an] argument.'
The credit of this translation belongs not to me, but to
the late Dr. Ballantyne, who was assisted in unravelling
these cobwebs of Nyltya logic by the Ny&ya-Pandits of the
Sanskrit College at Benares. Such native aid would seem
to be almost indispensable for such an achievement.
\
CHAPTER IX.
VAISESHIKA PHILOSOPHY.
Date of Sfrtras.
IT is fortunate that with regard to the Vaiseshika
philosophy, or rather with regard to the Vaiseshika-Sutras,
we are able to fix a date below which their composition
cannot be placed. In the year 1885 Professor Leumann,
well known by his valuable researches in Gaina literature,
published an article, * The old reports on the schisms of the
Gainas,' in the Indische Studien, XVII, pp. 91-135. Among
the various heresies there mentioned, the sixth, we are
told, p. 12J, was founded by the author of the Vaisesiya-
sutta of the Chaulu race, and hence called Chauluga *. If
there could be any doubt that this is meant for the Vaise-
shika-Sutras it would at once be dispersed by the 144
so-called points of that system, as mentioned by the author,
Ginabhadra. Ginabhadra's date is fixed by Professor Leu-
inann in the eighth century A.D., and is certainly not later.
This, it is true, is 110 great antiquity, still, if we consider
the age of our Samkhya-Sutras, referred now to the
thirteenth century A.D., even such a date, if only certain,
would be worth having. But we can make another step
backward. Haribhadra, originally a Brahman, but con-
verted to Gainism, has left us a work called the ShacZdar-
sanasarnuM'uya-sutrani, which conta:ns a short abstract of
the six Darsanas in which the Vai&eshika-darsana is de-
scribed as the sixth, and in that description likewise we
meet with the most important technical terms of the
VaiSushika. This short but important text was published
in the iirst volume of the Giornale della Societd Asiatica
* Could this be meant for Auluka ?
DATES FROM TIBETAN SOURCES. 439
Italiana* 1887, and Sanskrit scholarship is greatly indebted
to Professor C. Puini for this and other valuable contribu-
tions of his to Craina literature. The author, Haribhadra,
died in 10.55 °^ ^ne Vlra-era, i.e. 585 Samvat, that is
528 A.D. This would give us an attestation for the Vaise-
shika-Sutras as early as that of the Samkhya-karikas,
if not earlier, and it is curious to observe that in Hari-
bhadra's time the number six of the Darsanas was already
firmly established. For, after describing the (i) Bauddha,
(3) Naiyayika, (3) Samkhya, (4) (?aina, (5) Vaiseshika,' and
(6) (?aiminiya systems, he remarks, that if some consider
the Vaiseshika not altogether different from the Nyaya,
there would be only five orthodox systems (Astika), but
that in that case the number six could be completed by the
Lokayita (sic) system which he proceeds to describe, but
which, of course, is not an Astika, but a most decided
Nastika system of philosophy. It is curious to observe
that here again the Vedanta-philosophy, and the Yoga also,
are passed over in silence by the (?ainas, though, for reasons
explained before, we have no right to conclude from this
that these .systems had at that time not yet been reduced
to a systematic form like the other four Darsarias. What
we learn from this passage is that early in the sixth cen^
tury A.D. the Ny£ya, S£mkhya, Vaiseshika, and Purva-
Mim&y7is& systems of philosophy formed the subject of
scientific study among the (?ainas, and we may hope that
a further search for S'aina MSS. may bring us some new
discoveries, and some further light on the chronological
development of philosophical studies in India.
Dates from Tibetan Sources.
Whenever we shall know more of the sources from which
Tibetan writers derived their information about Indian
literary matters, more light may possibly come from thence
on the dates of the Indian philosophical systems of thought
also. It is true that the introduction of Buddhism into
Tibet dates from the eighth century only, but the trans-
lators of Sanskrit originals, such as $anti Rakshita, Padma
Sambhava, Dharmakirti, Dipamkara $ri<7//ana and others,
may have been in possession of much earlier information.
440 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
In an account ' of King Kanishka (85—106 A.D.) and his
Great Council under Vasumitra and Purnaka, we read that
there was at that time in Kashmir a Buddhist of the name
of Sutra who maintained a large Buddhist congregation
headed by a sage Dharmarakshita, and he is said to have
belonged to the Vaiseshika school 2. This would prove the
existence of the Vaiseshika philosophy in the first century
A.D., a date so welcome that we must not allow ourselves
to accept it till we know what authority there was for the
Tibetan writers to adopt it. It is taken from Sumpahi
Choijung, and the same authority states that after the
death of Kanishka, a rich householder of the nainu of Jati
who lived at Asvaparanta in the north, invited Vasunetra,
a monk of the Vaiseshika school, from Maru in the west,
"and another, Gosha Samgha from Bactria, and supported
the native clergy, consisting of three hundred thousand
monks, for a period of ten years.
Xanada.
Although Nyaya and Vaiseshika have been often treated
as sister philosophies, we must, after having examined
Gotama's philosophy, give, for the sake of completeness, at
least a general outline of Ka^ada's system also. It does
not contain much that is peculiar to it, and seems to pre-
suppose much that we found already in the other systems.
Even the theory of Anus or atoms, generally cited as its
peculiar character, was evidently known to the Nyaya,
though it is more fully developed by the Vaiseshikas. It
begins with the usual promise of teaching something from
which springs elevation or the summum bonum, and that
something Kart&da calls Dharma or merit. From a par-
ticular kind of merit springs, according to Kanada, true
knowledge of certain Padarthas, or categories, and from
this oncfe more the summum bonum. These categories, of
which we spoke before as part of the Nyaya-philosophy,
embrace the whole realm of knowledge, and are: (i) sub-,
stance, Dravya; (2) quality, Gmia; (3) action, Karman;
(4) genus or community, Samanya, or what constitutes
1 Journal of Buddhist Text Society, voL I, p. i seq.
1 Ibid., vol. I. part 3, p. 19.
QUALITIES. 441
a genus ; (5) species or particularity, Visesua, or what con-
stitutes an individual ; (6) inhesion or inseparability, Sama-
vaya ; (7) according to some, privation or negation, Abhava.
These are to be considered by means of their mutual
similarities and dissimilarities, that is, by showing how
they differ and how far they agree. Here we have, indeed,
what comes much nearer to Aristotle's categories than
Gotama's Padarthas. These categories or predicaments
were believed to contain an enumeration of »11 things
capable of being named, i. e. of being known. If the
number of Aristotle's categories was controverted, no wonder
that those of KaTiada should have met with the same fate.
It has always been a moot point whether Abhava, non-
existence, deserves a place among them, while some philo-
sophers were anxious to add two more, namely, £akti,
potentia, and Sad-mya, similitude.
Snbvtanoev.
I. The substances, accordingA to the Vaiseshikas, are:
(i) earth, PHthivi; (2) water, ApaA; (3) light, Terras ; (4)
air, Vayu ; (5) ether, Akasa ; (6) time, Kala ; (7) space, Dis ;
(8) self, Atman ; (9) mind, Manas. These substances cannot
exist without qualities, as little as qualities can exist with-
out substances. The four at the head of the list are either
eternal or non-eternal, and exist either in the form of
atoms (Amis) or as material bodies. The non-eternal sub-
stances again exist as either inorganic, organic, or as organs
of sense. The impulse given to the atoms comes from God,
and in that restricted sense Athe Vaiseshika has to be
accepted as theiatic. God is Atman in its highest form.
In its lower form it is the individual soul. The former is
one, and one only, the latter are innumerable.
Qualities.
II. The principal qualities of these substances are:
(i) colour Rupa, in earth, water, and light; (2) taste, Rasa,
in earth and water ; (3) smell, Gandha, in earth ; (4) touch,
Sparsa, in earth, water, light, and air ; (5) number, Sam-
khya, by which we perceive one or many; (6) extension
or quantity, Parim&wa; (7) individuality or severalty,
44 2 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
P?^thaktva ; (b) ' conjunction, Samyoga , (9) disjunction,
Viyoga ; (10) priority, Earatva ; (i i)1 posteriority ,Aparatva ;
(12) thought, Buddhi ; (13-14) pleasure and pain, Sukha
du&kha; (15-16) desire and aversion, IMAa-dveshau ; (i?)1
will, effort, Prayatna.
Actions.
III. The principal actions affecting the substances are:
(i) throwing upwards, UtkshepaTia; (2) throwing do,wn-
. wards, Avakshepawa (or Apa); (3) contracting, Aku/S&ana;
(4) expanding, Utsarawa (or Pras-); (5) going, Gainana.
These actions or movements are sometimes identified with
or traced back to the Samskaras, a word difficult to
translate, and which has been rendered by dispositions and
instincts, as applied to either animate or inanimate bodies.
These Saraskaras3 have an important position both in
the Samkhya- and in the Bauddha-philosophies. In the
Tarkadipika Samskara is rendered even by Crati (<?ati&
samskaratmika bhavati), i. e. nature or inborn peculiarity ;
and in the Tarkasamgraha it is represented as threefold
(VegaA, Bhavana, and SthitisthapakaA).
In the Sutras which follow, Kawada tries to point out
certain features which the 'three categories of substance,
quality, and action share in common, and others which are
peculiar to two, or to one only. In the course of thi3 discus-
sion he has frequently to dwell on the effects which they
produce, and he therefore proceeds in the next lesson to
examine the meaning of cause and effect, and likewise of
genus, species, and individuals. It may be that the name
of Vaisesliika was given to Ka^ada's philosophy from the
differences, or Viseshas, which he establishes between sub-
stances, qualities, and actions, or, it may be, from Visesha
as a name of individual things, applicable therefore to
atoms. But this, in the absence of decisive evidence, must
for the present remain undetermined.
1 Here follow in some lists as n to 15, gravity, fluidity, viscidity, and
sound. The remaining Gunas are said to be perceptible by the mental
organ only, not by the organs of sense.
* Here again some authorities add Dharma, virtue, and Adharma, vice,
Samskara, faculty or disposition, and Bhavana, imagination.
1 See Garbe, Sawkhya, p. 269 seq.
QUALITIES EXAMINED. 443
Cause.
As to cause and effect, Ka?i&da remarks that cause pre-
cedes the effect, but that, in order to be a true cause, it
must be a constant antecedent, and the effect must be
unconditionally subsequent to it. There is an important
and often neglected difference between K&rana and KaraTia.
KSrana, though it may mean cause, is properly the instru-
mental cause only, or simply the instrument. An axe, for
instance, is the K£ra7ia, or instrument, in felling a, tree, but
it is not the Kslrana, or cause. Causes, according to KaTi&da,
are threefold, intimate, non-intimate, and instrumental.
The threads, for instance, are the intimate cause of the
cloth, the sewing of the threads the non-intimate, and the
shuttle the instrumental cause.
Qualities Examined.
In the second book KaTiada examines the qualities of
earth, water, &c. He, like other philosophers, ascribes four
qualities to earth, three to water, two to light, one to air
(Akfoa). These are. the principal and characteristic quali-
ties, but others are mentioned afterwards, making alto-
gether fourteen for earth, such as colour, taste, smell, touch,
number, extension, individuality, conjunction, disjunction,
genus, species, gravity, fluidity, and permanence (II, i, 31).
Qualities ascribed to Isvara, or the Lord, are number,
knowledge, desire, and volition. In the case of air, which
is invisible, he uses touch as a proof of its existence, also
the rustling of leaves ; and he does this in order to show
that air is not one only. Curiously enough Kanada, after
explaining that there is no visible mark of air (II, J, 15)
but that its existence has to be proved by inference and by
revelation (II, i, 17), takes the opportunity of proving, as
it were, by the way. the existence of God (II, i, 18) by
saying that ' work arid word are the signs of the substantial
existence of beings different from ourselves/ This, at least,
is what the commentators read in this Sutra, and they
include under beings different from ourselves, not only God,
but inspired sages also. It seems difficult to understand
how such things as earth and the name of earth could be
claimed as the work of the sages, but, as far as God is
444 INDIAN, PHILOSOPHY.
concerned, it seems certain that Kanada thinks he is able
to prove His existence, His omnipotence and omniscience
by two facts, that His name exists, and that His works
exist, perceptible to the senses.
Immediately afterwards, Kanada proceeds to prove the
existence of Akasa, ether, by showing that it must exist in
order to account for the existence of sound, which is a
quality, and as such requires the substratum of an eternal
and special substance, as shown before. The question of
sound is treated again more fully II, 2, 21-37.
A distinction is made afterwards between characteristic
and adventitious qualities. If a garment, for instance, is
perfumed by a flower, the smell is only an adventitious
quality of the garment, while it is characteristic in the
case of earth. Thus heat is characteristic of light, cold of
water, &e
Time.
Time, which was one of the eternal substances, is declared
to manifest its existence by such marks as priority, posteri-
ority, simultaneity, slowness, and quickness. The argu-
ments in support of the substantiality of air and ether
apply to time also, which is one, while its division into past,
present, and future, hibernal, vernal, and autumnal, is due
to extrinsic circumstances, such as the sun's revolutions.
Time itself is one, eternal, and infinite.
Space.
Space, again, is proved by our perceiving that one thing
is remote fronj or near to another. Its oneness is proved
as in the case of time ; and its apparent diversity, such as
east, south, west, and north, depends likewise on extrinsic
circumstances only, such as the rising and setting of the
sun. Like time it is one, eternal, ana infinite.
So far Kanada has been chiefly occupied with external
substances, their qualities and activities, and he now pro-
ceeds, according to the prescribed order, to consider the
eighth substance, viz. Atman, the Self, the first in the list
of his sixteen Padarthas. Like Gotama, Kanada also argues
that the Atman must be different from the senses because
AMIS OR ATOMS. 445
whilo the senses,, apprehend each its own object only —
(i) the sense of hearing, sound ; (a) the sense of smelling,
odour; (3) the sense of tasting, savour; (4) the sense of
seeing, colour; (5) the sense of feeling, touch; it follows
that there must be something else to apprehend them all,
the work which in other philosophies was ascribed to
Manas, at least in the first instance. Besides, the organs
of sense are btit instruments, and as such unconscious, c*ri3
they .require an agent who employs them. If we see a
number of chariots skilfully driven, we know there must
.be a charioteer, and we know also that chariots and horses
are different from the charioteer. The same applies to the
senses of the body and to the Self, and shows that the
senses by themselves could not perform the work that
results in cognition. In defending this argument against
all possible objections, KaTiada, following the example of
Gotama, is drawn away into a discussion of what is a
valid and what is an invalid argument, and more par-
ticularly into an examination of what is a Vy&pti, or an
invariable concomitance, fit to serve as a true foundation
for a syllogism.
Manas.
But he soon leaves this subject, and, without finishing it,
proceeds to a consideration of Manas, the ninth and last of
the f)ravyas or substances. This, too, is to him much the
same that it was to Gotama, who treats it as the sixth of
the Prameyas. In this place, as we saw, Manas might be
translated by attention rather than by mind.
Anus or Atoms.
What is thought to be peculiar to Ka?i&da, nay the dis-
tinguishing feature of his philosophy, is the theory of Anus
or atoms. They take the place of the Tanmatras in the
Samkhya-philosophy. Though the idea of an atom is not
unknown in the Nyllya-philosophy (Ny&ya-Sfttras IV, 2,
4-25), it is nowhere so fully worked out as in the Vaise-
shika. Kanada argued that there must be somewhere a
smallest thing, that excludes further analysis. Without
this admission, we should have a regressus ad infinitum,
a most objectionable process in the eyes of all Indian philo-
446 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
sophers. A mountain, he says, would not be larger than
a mustard seed. These smallest and invisible particles are
held by KaTiMa to be eternal in themselves, but uon-eternal
as aggregates. As aggregates again they may be organised,
organs, and inorganic. Thus the human body is earth
organised, the power of smelling is *he earthly organ,
stones are inorganic.
Ii is, no doubt, very tempting to ascribe & Greek origin
to Kawada's theory of atoms. But suppose that the atomic
theory had really been borrowed from a Greek source,
would it not be strange that Kan&da's atoms are supposed
never to assume visible dimensions trll there is a combina-
tion of three double atoms (TryaTiuka), neither the simple
nor the double atoms being supposed to be visible by
themselves. I do not remember anything like this in
Epicurean authors, and it seems to me to give quite an
independent character to Kanada's view of the nature of
an atom.
We are told that water, in its atomic state, is eternal, as
an aggregate transient. Beings in the realm of Varuna
(god of the sea) are organised, taste is the watery organ,
rivers are water inorganic.
Light in its atomic state is eternal, as an aggregate
transient. There are organic luminous bodies in the sun,
sight or the visual ray is the luminous organ, burning fires
are inorganic.
Air, again, is both atomic and an aggregate. Beings of
the air, spirits, &c., are- organised air ; touch in the skin
is the aerial organ, wind is inorganic air. Here it would
seem as if we had something not very unlike the doctrine
of Empedocles, Fair/ pen yap yaiav dircoTra/xez;, vbari 8' vbu>p
AlOepi by aiOcpa blov] arap irvpl irvp diSrjAor. But though we
may discover the same thought in the philosophies of
Kaw&da and Empedocles, the form which it takes in Tmlia
is characteristically different from its Greek form.
Ether is always eternal and infinite. The sense of hear-
ing is the ethereal organ : nay, it is supposed by some that
ether is actually contained in the ear.
As to atoms, they are supposed to form first an aggregate
of two, then an aggregate of three double atoms, then of
SAMAVAYA. 447
four triple atoms, and so on. While single jitoms are inde-
structible, composite atoms are by their very nature liable
to decomposition, and, in that sense, to destruction. An
atom, by itself invisible, is compared- to the sixth part of
a mote in a sunbeam.
S&m&nya.
IV. As to Samanya, community, or, as we should say,
genus, the fourth of Kanada's categories, it is supposed to
be eternal, and a property common to several, and abiding
in substance, in quality, and in action. It is distinguished
by degrees, as fiigh and low ; the highest S£m&nya, or, as
we should say, the highest genus (Crati) is Satta,- mere
being, afterwards differentiated by Upadhis, or limitations,
and developed into ever so many subordinate species. The
Buddhist .philosophers naturally deny the existence of such
a category, and maintain that all OUT experience has to do
with single objects only.
V. These single objects are what KaTi&da comprehends
under his fifth category of Visesha, or that whiclr consti-
tutes the individuality or separateness of any object. This
also is supposed to abide in eternal substances, so that it
seems to have been conceived not as a mere abstraction,
but as something real, that was there and could be dis-
covered by means of analysis or abstraction.
Saxnavaya.
VI. The last category, with which we have met several
times before, is one peculiar to Indian philosophy. Sarna-
vaya is translated by inhesion or inseparability. With
Ka7i4da also it is different from mere connection, Samyoga,
such *,s obtains between horse and rider, or between milk
and water mixed together. There is Samavaya between
threads and cloth, between father and son, between two
halves a.nd a whole, between cause and effect, between sub-
stances and qualities, the two being interdependent and
therefore inseparable.
Though this relationship is known in non-Indian philo-
sophies, it has not received a name of its own, though
448 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
.
such a term iright have proved very useful in several
controversies. The relation between thought and word,
for instance, is not Samyoga, but Samav&y», insepar-
ableness.
Abi&va.
VII. In addition to these" six categories, some logicians
required a negative category also, that of Abhava or
absence. And this also they divided into different kinds,
into (i) Pr£gabh&va, former not-being, applying ID the
cloth before It was woven; (2) Dhvamsa, subsequent non-
being, as when a jar, being smashed, exists no longer as
ajar; and (3) Atyant&bMva, absolute not-being, an impos-
sibility, such as the son of a barren woman ; (4) Anyonya-
bh&va, reciprocal negation, or mutual difference, such as we
see in the case of water and ice.
It may seem as if the Vaiseshika was rather a disjointed
and imperfect system. And to a certain extent it is so.
Though it presupposes a knowledge of the Nyaya-system,
it frequently goes over the same ground as the Ny&ya,
though it does not quote verbatim from it. We should
hardly Imagine that the Vaiseshika-Sfttras would argue
against Upamana, or comparison, as a separate Pram&?ia,
in addition to Pratyaksha (sense) and Anum&na (inference),
unless in some other school it had been treated as an inde-
pendent means of knowledge ; and this school wag, as we
saw, the Nyaya, which is so far shown to be anterior to
the Vaiseshika-philosophy. Kan&da denies by no means
that comparison is a channel through which knowledge
may reach us, he only holds that it is not an independent
channel, but must be taken as a subdivision of another and
larger channel, viz. Anum&na or inference. He probably
held the same opinion about Sabda, whether we take it in
the sense of the Veda or of an utterance of a recognised
authority, because the recognition of such an authority
always implies, as he rightly holds, a previous inference to
support it. He differs in this respect from the ATarvaka
secularist, who denies the authority of the Veda outright,
while Ka?i£da appeals to it in several places.
A similar case meets us in Gotaina's Nyaya-Sfttras (1, 16).
Here, apparently without any definite reason. Gotama tells
THE SIX SYSTEMS. 449
us iii a separate aphorism that Buddhl (understanding),
Upalabdhi (apprehension), and (?/?ana (knowing) are not
different in meaning. Why should he say so, unless he had
wanted to enter his protest against £6me one else who had
taught that they meant different things ? Now this some
one else could only have been Kapila, who holds, as we
saw, that Buddhi is a development of Prakriti or unintel-
ligent natiire, and that conscious apprehension (Sam vid)
originates with the Purusha only. But here again, though
Gotama seems to have had the tenets of the S&mkhya-
school in his eye, we have no right on this ground to say
that our Sarakhya-Sftoras existed before the Ny£ya-Sutras
were composed. All we are justified in saying is that, like
all the other systems of Indian philosophy, these two also
emerged from a common stratum in which such opinions
occupied the minds of various thinkers long before the
final outcome settled down, and was labelled by such names
as Sslmkhya, or Nyaya, Kapila, or Gotama, and long, of
course, before the Samkhya-Sutras, which we now possess,
were constructed.
Tfce Six Systems.
It must have been observed how these six, or, if we
include the B&rhaspatya, these seven systems of philosophy,
though they differ from each other and criticise each other,
share nevertheless so many things in common that we can
only understand them as products of one and the same soil,
though cultivated by different hands. They all promise to
teach the nature of the soul, and its relation to the God-
head or to a Supreme Being. They all undertake to supply
the means of knowing the nature of that Supreme Being,
and through that knowledge to pave the way to supreme
happiness. They all share the conviction that there is
suffering in the world ,vhich is something irregular, has no
right to exist, and should therefore be removed. Though
there is a strong religious vein running through the six
so-called orthodox systems, they belong to a phase of
thought in which not only has the belief in the many Vedic
gods long been superse3ed by a belief in a Supreme Deity,
such as Pragdpati, but this phase also has been left behind
29 Qs
45O INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
to make room £or* a faith in a Supreme Power, or ir the
Godhead which has no name but Brahman or Sat, * I arn
what I am/ The Hindus themselves make indeed a dis-
tinction between the six orthodox systems. They have no
word for orthodox ; nay, we saw that some of these
systems, though atneistic, were nevertheless treated as per-
missible doctrines, because they acknowledged the authority
of che Veda. Orthodox might therefore bfc replaced by
Vedic ; and if atheism seems to us incompatible with
Vedism or Vedic orthodoxy, we must remember that athe-
ism with Indian philosophers means something very dif-
ferent from4 what it means with us. It means a denial of
an active, busy, personal <pr humanised god only, who is
called tsvara, the Lord, feut behind him and above him
Hindu philosophers recognised a Higher Power, whether
they called it Brahman, or Paramatman, or Purusha. It
was the denial of that reality which constituted a Nastika,
a real heretic, one who could say of this invisible, yet
omnipresent Being, Na asti, ' He is not/ Buddha therefore,
as wel; as Br/haspati, the Jfarvaka, was a Nastika, while
both the Yoga and the Samkhya, the former Sesvara, with
an Isvara, the other Anisvara, without an Isvara, the one
theistic, the other atheistic, could be recognised as orthodox
or Vedic.
The Hindus themselves were fully aware that some of
their systems of philosophy differed from each other on
essential points, and that some stood higher than others.
Maclhusudana clearly looked upon the Vedanta as the best
of N all philosophies, and so did 6'amkara, provided he was
allowed to interpret the Sutras of Badarayawa according
to the principles of his own unyielding Monism. Madhu-
sudana, as we saw, treated the Samkhya and Yoga by
themselves as different from the two Mimamsas, Nyaya
and Vai^eshika, and as belonging tc Smriti rather than to
>S'ruti Vif/wana-Bhikshu, a philosopher of considerable
grasp, while fully recognising the difference between the
six systems of philosophy, tried to discover a common truth
behind them all, and to point out how they can be studied
together, or rather in succession, and how all of them are
meant to lead honest students into the way of truth.
THE SIX SYSTEMS. 451
In his Preface to the Samkhya-Sutras, so well edited
and translated by Professor Garbe, Vigrwana-Bhikshu says :
" If we read in the BrihadaraTiyaka Upanishad II, 4, 5, and
IV, 5, 6, that the Self must be seen, must be heard, must
be pondered and meditated on, hearing and the rest are
evidently pointed out as means of a direct vision of the
Self, by which the highest object of man can be realised.
If it is asked how these three things can be achieved,
SmHti or tradition answers : ' It must be heard from the
words of the Veda, it must be pondered on with proper
arguments, and, after that, it must be meditated on con-
tinuously. These are the means of the vision of the Self/
' Meditated on/ that is, by means proposed in Yoga-
philosophy. Three things are known from passages of the
Veda, (i) the highest object of man, (acknowledge essential
for its attainment, (3) the nature of the Atman or Self which
forms the object of such knowledge. And it was the pur-
pose of the Exalted, as manifested in the form of Kapila,
to teach, in his six-chaptered manual on Viveka or distinc-
tion between Purusha and Prakriti, all the arguments which
are supported by $ruti.
If then it should be objected that we have already a
logical treatment of these subjects in the Nyaya and
Vaiseshika systems, rendering the Samkhya superfluous,
and that it is hardly possible that both — the Samkhya as
well as the Nyaya and Vaiseshika — could be means of right
knowledge, considering that each represents the Self in a
different form, the Nyaya and Vaiseshika as with qualities,
the Samkhya as without, thus clearly contradicting each
other, we answer No, by no means! Neither is the Sam-
khya rendered superfluous by the Nyaya and Vaicseshika,
nor do they contradict each other. They differ from each
other so far only as Nyaya and Vaiseshika treat of the
objects of empirical knowledge, but the Samkhya of the
highest truth. The Nyaya and Vaiseshika, as they follow
the common-sense view that it is the Self that feels joy
and pain, aim at no more t han at the first steps in know-
ledge, namely at the recognition of the Atman as different
from the body, because it is impossible to enter per saltum
into the most abstruse wisdom. The knowledge of those
C a- 2
452 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
preliminary schools which is attained by oimply removing
the idea that the Self is the body is no more than an
empirical comprehension -of facts, in the same manner as by
a removal of the misapprehension in taking a man at
a distance for a post, there follows the apprehension that
he has hands, feet, &c., that is, a knowledge of the truth,
yet. purely empirical. If therefore we read .the following
verse from the Bhagavad-gita III, 29 : —
'Those who are deceived by the constituent GuTias of
Prakriti, cling to the workings of the Gu?ias (Sattva,
Ra</as, and Tamas). Let therefore those who know the
whole truth take care not to distract men of moderate
understanding who do not as yet know the whole truth ; '
— we see that here the followers of the Nyaya and Vaise-
shika systems, though they hold to the false belief that the
Self can be an agent, are not treated as totally in error,
but only as not knowing the whole truth, if compared with
the Samkhyas, who know the whole truth. Even such
knowledge as they possess, leads step by step by means
of the lower impassiveness (Apara-vairagya) to liberation ;
while the knowledge of the Samkhyas only, as compared
with the lower knowledge, is absolute knowledge, and
leads by means of higher impassiveness (Paravairagya)
straight to liberation. For it follows from the words
quoted from the Bhagavad-gita that he only who" knows
that the Self is never an agent, can arrive at the whole
truth, and from hundreds of true Vedic texts, such as B?vih.
Ar. Up. IV, 3, 22 : ' Then he has overcome all the sorrows
of the heart'; thinking that desires, &c., belong to the
internal organ (Manas) only ; or Brih. Ar. Up. IV, 3, 7 :
' He, remaining the same (the Self), wanders through both
worlds, as^ if thinking, and as if moving (but not really) ' :
or Erik Ar. Up. IV, 3, 16: 'And whatever he may have
seen there he is not followed (affected) by it ' ; and likewise
from hundreds of similar passages in the Snm'ti, such as
Bhag. Ill, 27 : ' All works are performed by the constituents
of matter (the Guw/as of Prakriti) ; he only who is deceived
by Ahamkara or subjectivation imagines that he is the
agent'; and such as V. P. VI, 7, 22: 'The Self consists of
bliss (Nirvana/, and knowledge only, and is not con-
THE SIX SYSTEMS. 453
baminated (by the .Grmas). The qualities (Gu?? as) are full
of suffering, not of knowledge, and they belong to Prakriti,
not to the Self ' — from all such passages we say that it is
clear that the knowledge proclaimed by Nyaya and Vaise-
shika with regard to the highest subject is overcome.
By this, however, we do not mean to say that Nyaya
and Yaiseshika are not means of right knowledge, for iheir
teaching is not superseded by the Samkhya so far as
regards that portion which treats of the difference between
Self and the material body. Here we must follow the
principle (laid dowr in the Purva-Mimamsa), that what
a word (chiefly) raims at, that is its meaning ; (and apply it
to the systems of philosophy). The Nyaya simply repeats
the popular idea that joy pertains to the Self, without
referring to any further proofs ; and this chapter therefore
is not to be considered as really essential (or as what the
Nyaya chiefly aims at).
But admitting that there is here no difference between
Nyaya-Vaiseshika and the Samkhya systems, is there not
a clear contradiction between the Samkhya on one side
and the Brahma-Mimamsa (Vedanta) and the Yoga on the
other? The former denies the existence of an eternal
Isvara, the two others maintain it. Surely it cannot be
said that here also the contradiction between these systems,
the atheistic and theistic, can be removed by simply ad-
mitting, as before, two points of view, the metaphysical and
the empirical, as if the theistic doctrine existed only for the
sake of the worship of the multitude. Such a decision
would here be impossible. The atheistic view that an Isvara
is difficult to know and therefore non-existent, may well
have been merely repeated by the Samkhyas, as a popular
idea, and in order to put an end to the desire of men for
acquiring a divine status and divine Lbnours (by means of
penance, &c.), as in the case of the Nai}'ayikas when they
say that the Self possesses qualities (which must be taken
as merely a provisional remark). In the Veda or elsewhere
lsvara,the anthropomorphic deity, is never explicitly denied,
so that one could say that theism should be taken as the
common popular view only.
In spite of "all this we hold that here uoo these different
454 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.
views are really due to empirical or to metaphysical con-
ceptions.
For as works like the Bhagavad-gita (XVI, 8) when
saying : —
'Those say that the world is unreal, without support,
without an tsvara/
condemn the atheistic doctrine, we may very well suppose
that the Samkhyas simply repeated a common popular
view that there is no Isvara, in order to discourage the
striving after a divine status (so common among Saints),
or for some similar purpose. They v^ould naturally think
that if they, so far following the -materialists, did not deny
the existence of an active tsvara, the acquisition of the
discriminating knowledge (of the Samkhyas, between
Prakriti and Purusha) would be impeded, because those
who believe in an infinite, eternal and perfect Isvara, have
their thoughts entirely absorbed by this tsvara (so* that
they might not attend to the essential doctrine of the
S&mkhyas). No attack is made anywhere on theism, so
that the theistic doctrine of the Ved&nta should be restricted
to sacrificial and similar purposes only. But from passages
like Mah&bh. XII, 1167: 'No knowledge is equal to that
of the S&mkhya, no power to that of the Yoga/ and again
XII, 11198 : 'Let there be no doubt, the knowledge of the
S&mkhya is considered the highest/ we should learn the
excellence of the S£mkhya knowledge as superior to other
systems, though .only with regard to that portion which
treats of the distinction of Self and Prakriti, and not with
regard to the portion that objects to an Isvara. Furthermore
from the consensus of Par&sara also and all other eminent
authorities, we see that theism alone is absolutely true.
And from Parasara's Upa-puraTia and similar works the,
truth of the Brahma-MimAmsa in its chapter on the Isvara
is perfectly manifest. There we read : —
' In the systems of Akshapada and KaTiada (Nyaya and
Vaiseshika), in the S&mkhya and in the Yoga, whatever
portion is in conflict with the Veda, that has to be rejected
by all to whom the Veda is the only law/
' In the systems of Crainrini and Vyasa (in the Pftrva and
Uttara-Mlm&ras&) there is nothing in conflict with the
THE SIX SYSTEMS. 455
Vedk; for these trvo in their knowledge of the meaning of the
Veda have, by means of the Veda fully mastered the Veda/
• From other passages also the superior authority of the
Brahma-Mim&msa may be gathered, at least with regard
to that portion which treats of fsvara. Thus we read in
Mahabh. XII, 7663 seq. : —
' Manifold philosophical doctrines have been propounded
by various teachers; but cling to that only which has been
settled by arguments, by the Veda, and by the practice of
good people/
From this passage of the Moksnadharma also (XII, 7663),
and on account of the practice of Parasara and all eminent
authorities, it follows that the proof of the existence of an
tsvara, as proclaimed by the Brahma-Mimosa, the Nyaya,
Vaiseshika and other systems, is to be accepted as the
strongest ; and likewise because by passages in the Kurma
and other Pura/fias the ignorance of the Samkhyas with
regard to an Isvara has been clearly pronounced by Nara-
ya?ia and others; e.g. 'Take thy refuge with the begin-
nir^less and endless Brahman, whom the Samkhyas, though
strong as Yogins, are unable to perceive/
Besides, that tsvara alone is the principal object of the
Brahma-Mimamsa is proved by the very first words and
by other indications. If then it had been refuted on
that principal ,point, the whole philosophy (the Brahma-
Mimamsa) would no longer be a means at* right knowledge,
according to the principle, mentioned before, that what
a word chiefly aims at, that is its meaning. The chief aim
of the Samkiiya, on the contrary, is not the denial of an
L'vara, but the highest object to be obtained by the Self
by means of the discrimination between body and Self
which Jeads to it. Hence, though it be superseded in that
part which treats of the denial of tke tsvara, it will remain
as a means of right Knowledge, and this once more accord-
ing to the principle that what a word chietiy aims at, that
is its purport. The Samkhya has therefore • its ^proper
sphere, and is vulnerable in that part only which treats of
the denial of the Isvara, the personal and active god.
Nor would it be right to say that in the Brahma-Mima wsa
isvara may indeed be the principal object, but not its
456 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
eternal lordship or godhead. For, as the objection raided
in the Purvapaksha as to its (the Mim&ms&'s) allowing no
weight to the other Smritis cannot be sustained, it is cleaK
that tsvara can only be the object of the Brahma-Mim&ms&,
provided he is characterised by eternal lordship.
If it is said that the first Sutra of the Brahma-Mimamsa
does not say 'Now then a wish to know the highest
Brahman/ and that therefore it does not by the word
Brahman mean the Parabrahman, we must not on account
of the S£mkhya denial of an Isvara suppose that the
Ved£nta and Yoga systems likewise refer only to an evolved
Isvara (a Karyesvara, a product of Prakriti), for in that
case tha whole string of Sutras from II, 2, i, directed against
the S&mkhya and showing that mindless matter, being
incapable of creating, cannot be established by mere reason-
ing, would be absurd ; for if the God of the Vedanta were
a made God, or a product of matter, the Samkhyas v/ould
have been right in teaching an independent matter (Pra-
kriti). Lastly, the eternal character of Isvara is quite
clear from such Yoga-Sutras as I, 26, ' He (God) is the Guru
even of the oldest sages, because he is not limited by time/
and likewise from Vyasa's commentary on that Sutra. It is
clear therefore that as the SUmkhya means to deny the
common popular anthropomorphic view of Isvara only,
whether as a concession, or as a bold assertion, or, for some
other reason, there exists no real contradiction between it,
and the Brahma-Mim&ms&, and the Yoga.
Such concessions are found in other authoritative works
also, as, for instance, in the Vishmi-PuraTia, I, 17, 83 : —
'O Daitya, these various opinions have I declared for
those who admit a difference (who are not yet monists), by
making a concession (to dualism). Let this abstract of
mine be listened to/
Nay it is possible that in some accredited systems also
opinions should have been put forward in contradiction
with the Veda in order to shut out bad men from a know-
ledge of the truth. Such parts would of course not be
means of right knowledge, but the other and principal
parts only, which are in harmony with Sruti and Snmti.
Hence we see that in the Padma-Pura7?,a fault is found with
THE SIX SYSTEMS. 457
all systems except the Brahma-Mimamsa and Yoga. Here
we see God (/Siva) saying to Parvati :—
' Listen, O goddess, I shall in succession tell you the
heretical theories by the mere hearing of which even sages
lose their knowledge.
First of all, I myself have taught the Saiva, Pasupata
and other systems, and afterwards others have been pro-
mulgated by Brahmans, who were filled by my powers.
Ka7tada has promulgated the great Vaiseshika doctrine,
Gautama the Ny&ya, Kapila the Samkhya. The Brahman
(?aimini has composed a very large work of atheistic
character, the first of the two Mimamsas, which treat of
the meaning of the Veda. Then, in order to destroy the
demons, DhishaTia (Brihaspati) propounded the altogether
despicable #&rv£ka system ; and Vish/mi, under the disguise
of Buddha, propounded the erroneous Baucldha system
whieh teaches that people are to go naked, and should wear
blue or other coloured garments, while I myself, 0 goddess,
under the disguise of a Brahman (i.e. of Samkara) have
ta"ght in this Kali age the doctrine of illusion (Maya)
which is false and only a disguised Buddhism. It is spread
far and wide in the world, and attributes a false meaning
to the words of the Veda. In it it is said that all works
should be relinquished, and after surrendering all works,
complete inactivity is recommended.
I have taught in it the identity of the highest Self and
the individual Self, and have represented the highest form
of Brahman as entirely free from qualities; and this in
order to destroy the whole world in this Kali age. This
extensive, non-Vedic, deceptive doctrine has been pro-
pounded by me, as if it presented the true meaning of the
Veda, in order that all living things might perish/
All this and more has been explained by me in the com-
mentary on the Brahma-Mimamsa, and it is wrong there-
fore to say of any of the admittedly orthodox systems of
philosophy that it is not the means of right knowledge or
that it- is refuted by others. For in reality none of them
is contradicted or refuted in what constitutes its own chief
object.
But, if it be asked whetner the Samkhya-philosophy
458 INBIAN PHILOSOPHY.
has not likewise made a mere concession with regard to
the multiplicity of souls, we answer decidedly, No. For
on that point there is really no contradiction (between
the two, S&rakhya and Ved£nta) because it is shown in
the chapter which begins at Brahma-Sfttras II, 3, 43, and
declares that the individual self is a part of the Highest
Self, because the multiplicity is stated (in the Veda) ; that
the Brahma-Mim&ms& also recognises a multiplicity of
Atman, But that the individual souls, as conceived by the
S&mkhya, are Atman is certainly denied by the Ved&nta,
for it follows from Sutra IV, 1,3: ' Jhey know him and
teach him as Atman,' that to the Ved&ntins, from the
standpoint of absolute truth, the highest soul only is
Atman. Nevertheless the Samkhya does not thereby lose
its authoritative character, because it is not superseded
by the Ved&nta in what constitutes its own characteristic
doctrine, namely that for the individual soul, the know-
ledge of its being different from everything else, constitutes
the true means of liberation. There is no contradiction
therefore, because the concepts of the manifold Atman ^nd
of the one Atman, so well known from Veda and tradition,
can be fully reconciled according as we take an empirical
or metaphysical view, as has been explained by ourselves
in the Commentary on the Brahma-Mim&ms& — Sapienti
sat"
I have given here this long extract from Vigrwana-
Bhikshu, though I have to confess that in several places
the thread of the argument is difficult to follow, even after
the care bestowed on disentangling it by Professor Garbe.
Still, even as it is, it will be useful, I hope, as a good
specimen of the Indian way of carrying on a philosophical
controversy. Nay, in spite of all that has been said against
Vigrtfana-Bhikshu, I cannot deny that to a certain extent
he seems to me right in discerning a kind of unity behind
the variety of the various philosophical systems, each being
regarded as a step towards the highest and final truth.
He certainly helps us to understand how it came 'to pass
that the followers of systems which to our mind seem
directly opposed to each other on very important points,
managed to keep peace with each other and with the Veda,
THE SIX SYSTEMS. 459
.the highest authority in all matters religious, philosophical
and moral. The idea that the largely accepted interpre-
tation of the Vedanta-Sfttras by /Sa^kara was a perversion
of the Veda and of Badarayana's Sfttras, not much better
than Buddhism, nay that Buddhism was the work of
Vishmt, intended for the destruction of unbelievers, is very
extraordinary, and evidently of late origin. Nay, nothing
seems to me to show better that these Puranas, in the form
in* which we possess them, are of recent origin, and certainly
not the outcome of a period previous to the Renaissance of
Sanskrit literature, tjian passages like those quoted by Vi#-
/7ana-Bhikshu, representing the gods of the modern Hindu
pantheon as interfering with the ancient philosophy of
India, and propounding views which they know to be erro-
neous with the intention of deceiving mankind. Whatever
the age of our philosophical Sutras may be, and some of
them, in the form in which we possess them, are certainly
more modern than our Pur&Tias, yet the tradition or Param-
par& which they represent must be much older; and in
trj ing to enter into the spirit of the Six Systems, we must
implicitly trust to their guidance, without allowing our-
selves to be disturbed by the fancies of later sects.
INDEX.
ABDAYASES, nephew of K. Gon-
d.*phores, found on Indo-Par-
A thian coins, 63.
Abhassara, spirits, 17.
Abhava, 377, 448-
— not-being, -203, 395.
Abhibuddhis, the five, 1165.
Abhyasa, 338.
Absorption, no part of the Yoga
system, 310.
Actions, Karman, 443.
Adhibhautika, pain from other
A living beings, 275, 367.
Adhidaivika, pain from divine
agents, 275, 367.
Adhikara-vidhis, 200.
Adi yatma, Adhibhuta, and Adhi-
daivata, 264.
Adhyatmika, pain from the body,
274, 367-
Adhyavasaya, determination, 173.
Adi-purusha, the First Self, 329.
— a firirt Purusha, 331.
Aditi, identified with sky and air,
^ the gods, &c., 40.
Adityas, seven in number, 38.
— later raised to twelve, 39.
Adrishta, or Apurva, 277.
Agra, doubtful meaning of, 78.
Agama.AUsed by Pata%ali instead
of Aptava/cana, 337.
Ayatasatru and Balaki, 13, 27.
— K. of Kasi, son of Vaidehl,
J3> 23.
Aghora, not terrible, 35:
Agrita Kesakambali, teaeher men-
A tioned in Buddhist annals, 89.
Agivaka, Gosali originally an, 89.
Agrivakos. 240.
Agfianavada, Agnosticism, 19.
Agni as Indra and Savitri, 40.
Ahamkara, subjectivation, 249, 250,
283.
Ahawktlra, a cosmic power, a§&.
— modifications of the, 250.
— mental act, 250.
— of three kinds, 264.
— the cause of creation, 283.
— personal feelings, 426.
Aisvaryas, or superhuman powers,
226.
Aitihya, tradition, 395, 429.
Akasa, fifth element, vehicle of
sound, 383, 386, 400, 443.
Akhyayikas, or stories, 225, 243.
— absent in the Tattva-samasa and
the Karikas, 243.
— reappear in the Samkhya-Sutras,
243-
Afcit, matter, 187.
Akn'tis, species, 252, 398.
Aksha, organ, 252.
Akshapada and Kanada, 454.
Alara Kahuna, 20.
Alberuni, 222.
Alexander and Indian philosophy,
386.
Alexandria, known as Alasando,
saec. Ill, 63.
— Brahmans did not borrow ideas
from, 150.
— did Brahmans come to ? 399.
— Logos-idea, no antecedents of it
in Greek philosophy, 56.
Alimga, i. e. Prakn'ti, 341 n.
American Indians, their sweating
processes, 312.
Amu^a, not stupid,, 251.
Ananda, or bliss in the highest
Brahman, 372.
Anarabhyadhita. 201.
AnathapincZika, 25.
Aniruddha, 188.
Ann'ta, unreal written letters, 92,
Antanantikas, 18.
Anugraha-sarga, 271,
462
INDEX.
Anumftna, or infer, nca, 145, 274,
374, 379, 448.
— applied by Badarayana to Smriti,
tradition, 147.
— fpr others, 431.
Anus, or atoms, 426, 440, 445, 446.
Anusaya, Anlage, 177.
Anusravika, revealed, 338.
Anuttamambhasika, 269.
Anva%ya-vyatireki, 436.
A nvikshikl, old name of philosophy,
76 n.
1 — bifurcation of the old system of,
363.
Anyatva, 271.
Apara, lower knowledge, 164.
Apara-vairagya, lower impassive-
ness, 452.
Apaumsheyatva, non-human origin
of the Vedas, 207.
Apavarga, or final beatitude, 373,
378, 385, 421, 424-
— bliss of the Nyaya, 372.
Apotheosis, 279.
Application, Upanaya, 432.
Apramoda, 269.
Aprainodamaiia, 269.
Apramudita, 269.
Aprasuta, not produced, 245.
Apratiyogitva, 437.
Apia, not to be translated by aptus,
146.
~ explanation of, 274.
Aptava/cana, the true word, 232,
382.
Apta-va/rana, 274.
Aptopadesa = Aptavafcana, 145, 395.
Apurva-principle, 211.
— miraculous, 211.
Arada, teacher of Samkhya-philo-
^ sophy, 238.
Arambha vada, theory of atomic
agglomeration, 81.
Aranyakas, distinction of parts of,
into Upanishads and Vedantas,
84 n.
Arasya, 269.
Arksih. the, 119.
Artabhuga, 12.
Arthu, objects of the senses, 163.
Arthapatti, assumption, 395.
Arthuvadas, glosses, 209.
Asakti, weakness, 269.
Asanta, not-pleasurable, 351.
Asat-karyavada, peculiar to Nyaya
and Vaiseshika, 159.
Asatpramuditam, 269.
Asaya, Anlage, 320.
Asiddhis and Siddhis, 269.
Asmarathya, referred to by Bada-
rdy ana, 91.
Asmita, different from Ahamkara,
343 n.
Asoka, King, 263 B. c., 26.
Asrama, not found in the classical
A Upanishads, 236.
Asramas of the Buddhists, only
two, Grihins and Bhikkhus,
A 23<5.
Asramas, stations in life, 101.
Asramin in the Mai tray. Up., 236.
Assertion, Prati^mt, 432.
Astitva, yeality, 271.
AsumariA-ika, 269.
Asunetra, 269.
Asupara, 269.
Asura, name given to Tvash/n*, and
to his son Visvarupa, 44.
Asuri, 295.
Asutara, 269.
Asvaghosha's Buddha-fcarita, first
cent. A. D., 237.
Asvala, n.
Asvalayana Grzhya-Sutras, 239.
Asvapati Kaikeya, 14.
Atara, 269.
Ataratara, 269.
Atheism of Purva-Mimamsa, the
supposed, 210.
— of Kapihi, 302.
— attributed to the Vaiseshika and
Nyaya and Purva-Mimamsa,
327-
Ativahika-sarira formed of eighteen
elements, 301.
Atma-anatma-viveka, 285.
Atmadarsanayogyata, fitness for
beholtling the Self, 357.
Atman, taught by Kshatriyas, 14.
— importance of the word, 70.
— etymology of, 71.
— = breath in Veda, the Mfe, soul,
71-
— the name of the highest person,
72.
— and Purusha. 277, 285.
INDEX.
463
Atman, not cognitive, 330.
Atom, invisible, si.vth part of a
mote, 447.
Atoms, Greek origin of theory of,
446.
Atreya, referred to by Badarayarja,
91.
Atushii and Tushd, 269.
Atyantabhava, 437.
Audulomi, referred to by Badara-
yana, 91.
Avapr, 202.
Avayavas, or Premisses, i. e. the
members of a syllogism, 382,
385.
Avidya, history of, 161.
— changed to a Sakti or potentia
of Brahman, 168.
— not to be accounted for, 172.
— applied to Kant's intuitions of
sense and his categories, 173.
— and Mithyagruana, 185.
— N. science, 268, 284, 285, 378,
386.
— an actual power, Sakti, 280.
— origin of, 289.
Avif a, not having a seed, 342.
Avinabhava, Not -without -being,
377-
Aviruddhakos, 240.
Avisesha, subtle elements, 341 n.
Aviveka, 285, 367.
Avividi^ha, carelessness, 266.
Avrishii, 269.
Avyakta, 188, 246, 341 n., 372.
— producing, Prasuta, 245.
— doubtful meaning of, 78.
— chaos, 245.
Awake, state of being, 174.
Ayur-veda, 413.
BABARA PRAVAHAM, signi-
ficative name, 208.
Babylonian hymns, more modern
in thought than thor 3 of Rig-
veda, 34.
Badarayarca, author of one of the
Mimamsas, 85, 116, 120, 371.
— quotes Gaimini, 91, 198.
— identified with Vyasa, 113.
Badari, referred to by Badarayana,
91.
Bahutva, 27*1.
Bana know.* Kfcpilas, Kanadas, 241.
Bana's HarshaArarita, 600 A. D.,. 241.
Bandha, bondage, 272.
Bandhas, or bindings, 349.
Bante, Buddhist title, 16.
Barhaspatyam, studied by Buddha,
97-
Bathing, ^graduating) the pupil,
205.
Berkeley, 194.
Bhadrasana, 349.
Bhagavatas, follower of Krishna,
31-
Bhartnhari, date of death, 650 A. D.,
9<>> 339-
— refers to the Darsanas, 90.
Bhafta, 404.
Bhava, the real world, the causey
of Samadhi, 343.
Bhikkhu, name of, 236.
Bhiksha&arya, or begging, 236.
— and BhaikshaMrya, 236.
Bhikshu-Sutras, loss of, referred to
by Bhaskara&arya, 86.
Parasarya, the author, 97,
117.
same as Vedanta-Sutras, 117.
Bhikshus, mendicants, 24, 31.
Bhur, 150.
Bhuta-sarga, 272.
Bhutadi, 249, 250.
Bhutatman, elementary Atman,
261.
Bimbisara, 16, 27.
Boar— legend that it brought forth
the earth, allusions in Brah-
rnanas, 73.
Bod da, name found among followers
of Marii, 64.
Boddo (on coins), name of Buddha.
27.
Bodhayana, 117, 230.
Body, a subtle and a gross, 300.
— &arira, 416.
— is it the same at Atman, 416.
Brahma, creator, 18.
— called Vasudeva, 188.
Brahmadatta, 16.
Brahma-(/ala-sutta, 16, 17, ai.
Brahman, various meanings of, 52.
— identified with speech, 65.
— is the sun, 142.
— is Manas, 142.
464
INDEX.
Brahman is food, 14",
— is Vi^nana, 142.
— as the Word, the first creation
of divine thought, 145, 149, 150,
397-
— or VsJc or Bn'h, eternal, 150.
— is everything, 172.
— as the Kantian Ding an sich,
172.
— is the world, 280.
— may become to us Brahma-, 281.
— of the Vedanta, 285.
— is Anirva&aniya, un definable, 288.
Brahmana, a social title, 17,
Brahmanas consist of Vidhis, in-
junctions and Arthavadas,
glosses, 200.
Brahmans, two, Saguna and Nir-
guna, 1 68.
Bn'h, parallel form of Vn'dh, 54.
— — to grow, c. p. Latin verbum
and German wort, 55.
— speech, 397.
Brihaspati, synonymous with Va-
A-aspati, lord of speech, 54, 99,
397-
— Sutras, lost, 86.
— philosophy, the, 94.
— Laukya, 94.
— Angirasa, 94.
Budh, means to awake, 283.
Buddha, a Kshatriya, 10.
— guru, identified with Pythagoras,
60.
— works studied by, 96.
— did not borrow from Kapila, 103.
— subjects known to, 115.
— borrowed from Kapila no evi-
dence that, or vice versa, 297.
— later than the classical Upani-
shads, 314.
— declared against Yoga tortures,
315-
Buddha-frarita, the, 237.
Buddha's mother, name of, 93.
— denial of an Atman or Brahman,
316.
Buddhiv intellect, 246, 376, 383.
— or Mahat, in a cosmic sense,
246.
— the lighting up of Prakn'ti, 282.
— of the Nyaya different from that
of the Samkhyas, 418.
'Buddhindriyas, five, 25 r.
Buddhism, sul sequent to Upam-
shads, 236.
— in Tibet, eighth century A. D.,
439-
Buddhist-Suttas, reduced to writing
in the first century B.C., 238.
Buddhists support Asat-karyavada,
159.
— derive the real from the unreal,
303.
— paid little attention to th> two
Mimawsas, 365.
— deny present time, 393.
Butta (first Greek mention of
Buduha by Clement of Alexan-
dria), 27
CALF, the new-born year, 51 n.
Case, five members of a (Adhi-
karana), 204.
Caste, Portug. casto, 9.
Castes, origin of, in India, 9, 10,
Categories of the Nyaya, 440.
Causal state of Brahman, 188.
Causation, chain of, 378.
Cause and effect, Vedkntist theory
of, 155-
with them are the same thing,
seen from different points, 155.
Causes, are intimate, non-intimate,
and instrumental, 443
Chronology of thought, 120.
Cleanthes and Boethius, 322.
Clement of Alexandria, 27.
knows name of Butta, 27, 62.
Coining money, 61.
Colebrooke on the Gunas, 262.
Comparison, Upamana, 382.
Conclusion, Nigamana, 432.
Conditions, Upadhis, of forming
a Vyapti, or universal rule,
434-
Con-scien^ia, Sam-vid, 359.
Consideration, Paramarsa, 430.
Creation, or causation, 155.
— the result of Nescience, 154.
— proceeds from Brahman, 155,
157.
— caused by Maya or Avidya, 192.
Cripple who could not walk, and
cripple who could not see, 302.
INDEX.
465
PAitSHA, force, one meaning of
Brahman, 70.
Dakshina-ba idha, bondage, 234.
— gifts to priests, 272.
Damascius says Brahmaiis lived at
Alexandria saec. V, 62.
Dandasana, 349.
Darsanns, or systems, the six all
orthodox, 288, 439.
Death, state of, 174.
Deity, existence of a, 422.
Deussen, Professor, theory of evo-
lution of Word and Brahman,
70.
Deva, supreme, never assented by
Kapila, 302.
Devadhammikas, 240.
— worshippers of the Devas, 241.
Devas, thirty-three in number, ac-
cording to Rig- veda and Avesta,
difficulty of filling up this
number, 38.
Devayana, path of the gods, 176.
Devotion to the Lord, one of many
expedients, 319.
Dhanna, duty, 199, 440.
Dharmakirfcti, seventh century, 364,
439-
Dharmamegha, cloud of virtue,
357-
Dharmarakshita, a sage, 439.
Dharmottara, ninth century, de-
fended Dharmakirtti, 365.
Dhatri, maker, name given to the
one god, 47.
Dhishana (Bn'haspati), 457.
Dhriti, energy, 266.
Dhyanas (GMna), four, 20.
Dignaga, the logician, 364.
Dignaga' s writings lost, 365 n.
— Nyaya-sainu/c/eaya, a Tibetan
translation of, 365 n.
^-ipamkara Srigwana, 439.
Distinction of good and eyil, 180.
Divakara, a sage, 600 A. D., 30.
Divine thinker, every word au act
of a, 150.
Divyadasa Datta, living Vedantist,
155, 105-
Dosha, faults, 421.
Dreaming, state of, 174.
Drishfam. what is seen, 274.
, example, 385.
Drumstick and Irum together cbn-
vey, even to the deaf, the idea
of sound, 380.
Dual gfids, two or three gods work-
ing together, tendency towards
unity among the gods, 40.
Duftkha, puin, 274, 367, 421.
Du&khanta, or Nirvana, 108, 370.
EFFECT, an, only a new manifesta-
tion, dogma characteristic of
the Samkhya, 158.
Ekagrata, concentration, 357.
Emancipation, Apavarga, 425.
Eschatology, 175.
Esse is percipi or pertipere, 291.
Eternal punishment, 276.
Evolution, Pariwama, 280.
— of works, the independent. 331.
Exercises, Abhyasa, 338.
Exposition, five-mem bered form of,
432.
FABLES in the Sutras, 305.
Fa-hian visits India, 399-414 A. D.,
27.
Fancy chiefly due to words, 337.
Fetishism or Totemism, did they
precede the Aryan theogony?
36.
Fifth element, called aKa.r-ov6fjux.rovj
386.
First and last inference, Vita, or
straightforward, 382.
Fivefold division of tho vital spirit,
174.
Four or five elements, the, 99.
— states, the, 174.
— Pramanas, according to Gotama,
374-
Freedom from passions, Vairagya,
338.
— or beatitude depends on philo-
sophy, 391.
Frog- wife, the, 316.
&AIMINI, author of one of the
Miniawsiis, 85. 371.
— referred to by Badaraya?ia, 91,
198.
— his work atheistic, 457,
— and Vyasa, 454.
— Sutras, contents of, soo.
466
INDEX.
Gaina literature, 4^8, 439.
Gainas, in white robes, 31.
(?alpa, sophistical wrangling, 389.
Gamgesa Upadhyaya, fourteenth
century, 366.
Ganaka, king of Mithila, the Vide-
ha, 11-13, a?»
Ganganatha Jha, of Bombay, 318.
Gargi Vafc&knavi, n.
tfati, kith and caste, 9.
— birth or genus, a transitio in
cUterum (jenus, 389.
— futility, 389.
Gatilakas, 241,
Gaudapada, date of, 223,
Gauri-Sawkar, Mount, 184.
Ghora, fearful, 253.
Ginabhadra, eighth century, 438.
Glvanxnukti, 180, 360.
Gflanayoga, 311, 347.
Gfiatiputra, teacher mentioned in
Buddhist annals, the Nirgran-
tha, founder of Gainism, 89.
Gnomina, nomina, 376.
God in the beginning created
namos and forms of things,
398.
Gods of the Vedic people, the
agents postulated behind the
great phenomena of nature, 36.
Gondaphoros, king, authenticated
as Gondophares, 63.
G&rres on Sk. terms retained by
the Greeks, 386.
Gosha-Samgha, from Bactria, 440.
Gosaliputra, teacher mentioned in
Buddhist Annals, 89.
Gotama and Kanada, philosophies
of, 80.
Gotamakas, 240.
Greek accounts of India, 26, 386.
Gunas, constituents of nature, lii.
— the three, in, 216, 255, 256,
262, 263, 357.
— as Dravyuni, matter, 263.
— equilibrium of the three, 263.
— of Prakrit i, 341 n.
— not qualities, but substantial,
357-
Gyotishtoma sacrifice, 209.
HAMMER OF FOLLY, Mohamud-
gara, 181
Haribhadra, his
uAr/caya-sutfam, 438.
— died, 528 A. D., 439.
Harihara, 256, 313.
Harsha, King, 600 A. D., 27.
— history of, by Ban*, 30.
— court of, 365.
Ha&a, or Kriya-yoga, 344, 345.
Head, forfeited ip disputations, 13.
Heart, seat of consciousness, 356.
Hegel's thesis, antithesis, and syn-
thesis, 263.
Henotheism = phase in which God
is addressed as if the only god
in existence, with forgetfulness
of all others, 40.
Herbart's Selbsfa-hattung des Realm,
159-
— philosophy, 174.
Hetvabhasas, specious arguments,
four kinds, 389.
Hiouen-thsang, Buddhist pilgrim,
visits India, 629-645 A. D,, 27.
— did not translate the Vaiseshika-
Sutras by Kanada, 242.
Hiranyagarbha, 256, 313.
Holenmerian theory of Plotinus
and Henry More, 173.
Homoiousia, 321.
Human souls reborn in animal and
vegetable bodies (in Upani-
shads), 105.
Hume's view of causality, 159.
Hyades, stars marking time of
rain, 37.
Hylobioi, forest-dwellers, 27.
Hymn to the Unknown God, 46.
Hymns, adaptations of, 201.
Hypnotic states, how produced, 365,
Hypnotism, 349.
ICHNEUMON AND SNAKE, 380.
Idealism, is Samkhya? 293.
Identity, Sabhavyam, 177.
Idolatry, a necessity of our nature
165.
Ignorance, or Mithyagfftana, 391,
Immortality of the soul, 105.
India, a nation of philosophers, 7.
— early philosophers in, 8.
Indian coinage, 60.
— leaven in our thoughts, 194, 385.
— philosophy, books on, 368, 369,
INDEX.
467
Indian logic, 390.
Individual soul is Brahman, not
vice twsfl, 154.
Xndra, the rainer, 35.
Indriyagraya, subjugation of senses,
357-
Indriyas, five senses, 163, 415.
— sense, 173.
Indu, the rain, 55.
Inference, Anum&na, 379.
— thrse kinds of, 379, 382,
— Smfiti, 397.
Instance, Udaharana, 432.
Inward-turned thought, Pratyak-
fcetana, 323.
tsvara exists phenomenally only,
170.
— the Lord, 188.
— Krishna, 224.
— or personal Lord, denial of, not
in the original Samkhya, 230.
— abc Te all Purushas, 320.
-T- a Punish a, 320.
— one of many souls, 325, 344.
— perception of the, 327, 328.
— a maker, a Sat-kara, 328.
tsvaras, not many, 321.
JATI, of Asvaparanta, 440.
KAIVALYA, aloneness, 345, 356,
359, 3?c, 373-
Kaivalva-pada, 334.
— means isolation qf the soul, 334.
Kaivalya/347, 359.
Kaiyafa, 404.
jfifakrapravartana, the turning of
the wheel, 24.
Kakuda Katyayana, teacher men-
tioned in Buddhist annals,
89.
Kalanos (Kalyana) gymnosophist,
386.
Kalidasa, alludes to the logician
Dignaga, 364.
Kanada, 362, 372, 440.
/vandrakanta Tarkulunkara, author
of Sanskrit treatise, 87 n.
Kanishka, King, 85-106 A. ».. 440.
— — his Great Council, under
Vasumitra and Purnakaj 440.
£an-ti, not a good Chinese scholar,
222.
Kapila and Pataffcali, 307.
— and Buddha, existence side by
si<Je of their systems, 316.
— appeals to the Veda, 326
— his atheism, 302.
— "did 'Buddha borrow from?
240.
— did not borrow from Buddha,
103.
Sutras, age of, 220, 364.
— revived the Sawkhva, 243 n.
vastu or vastu, birthplace of
Buddha, 238.
Kapya Patawfcala, 307 n.
Karana and Karana, difference be-
tween, 252, 443.
Karana vasthu, causal state of Brah-
man, 109, 188.
Karikas, 275, 306.
Karman, 109.
— or deed, 171, 440.
— theory of, 330, 371.
Karmatmans, 250, 267.
Karmayoga, 311.
Karmayonis, five, 266.
Karmendriyas, five, 252.
Karshnagini, referred to by Badara-
yana, 91.
.Karva, synonym of Buddha, 99.
Jfarvaka, 99.
— system, 457.
Xarvakas admitted but one source
of knowledge, 143.
— sensualists, 86.
Karya-karanabheda, the non-differ-
ence, or substantial identity,
of cause and effect, 156.
Karyesvara, 456.
Kasakritsna, referred to by Badara-
yawa, 91.
Kasawara of Japan, died, 223.
KaiantraAManda/isprakriya, modern
Sanskrit treatis? in Sutras, 87 n.
Kanaka, author of the, 208.
Kauthuma, author of the, 208.
A'eshJa, gesture, 396, 429.
Kevalanvayi, 436.
Kevala-vyatireki, 436.
Kh&\&, quibbling, 389.
Khyati, discrimination, 248.
Kinv&t bridge, had antecedents in
tlie Veda, 63.
JSlt, Supreme Hpirit, 187.
H h 2
468
INDEX.
Kitta, 336.
— work of the Manas, 359.
Klamaths, a N. American race,
their view of creation, 03.
Knowledge alone leads to Mokslia,
166.
— true, or Samyagdarsana, 179. ^
— arises from conjunction of At-
man with Manas, 419.
— not eternal, 421.
— of ideas, not things, 426.
— characteristic feature of Self,
428.
Kramamukti, slow advance towards
freedom, 164.
Krishna, the hero of the Bhagavad-
gita, of Kshatriya origin, 30.
— similarity of name with Chris tos,
61.
— Dvaipayana, name for Badara-
yawa, 117.
Krittikas, the time for mowing, no
star- worship in India, 37.
Kriyaphalas, the four, 206.
Kriyayoga, 347, 349.
— working Yoga, 345.
Krypto-buddhists, 306.
Kshatriyas, as philosophers, 8.
Kumar ila Bhal/a, 210.
Kusuruvinda Auddalaki, 208.
, secondary applica-
tion of a word, 177.
Language, thoughts on, 396, 397,
402.
Laukayatika, 94.
Laukayatikas, materialists, 86.
Letters, idea of, elaborated by the
Hindus before they knew the
Semitic alphabet, 403.
— have no raison d'etre, 407.
Liwgamatra, i. e. Buddhi, 341 n.
Logic, 375.
Logos, the result of Avidya, 183.
— or Sophia, 399.
Lokayata, used by Buddhists for
philosophy in general, 99.
— or world- wide system, 99.
— atheistic, =276, 276 n.
Lokayatikas, atheists, 31.
— or Laukayatikas, heretics, 98.
Lokayita system, 437.
MADHAVA'S account of Nyaya,
377-
Madhusudana, 80, 450.
Madhyamika Vritti by ITandra
Kirtti, 366.
Madras, the, 209.
Magandikas, 240.
Mahabharata, as a law-book, 30.
Mahabhutas, 252.
Mahat is not Phenician Mot, 259.
Maitrayana Upanishad, 112.
Manas, central organ of perception,
163, 292.
— mind, 173, 252, 367, 416.
— brarn, 292.
— point of attention, 292.
— a mere instrument, 292.
— is cognitive, 330.
— different from Buddhi, 336.
— or mind, as Arm or atom, 383,
384, 421.
— as nitya, eternal, 384.
— eternal and numerous, 384.
— many manifestations of, 418.
— ninth and last of the Dravyas,
445-
Manifestation or intuition, 143.
Manu, 307.
Maruts, eleven, help to make up
the thirty- three Devas, 39.
Maurya, name of, doubtful, 119.
M. M.'s Indian Logic, 368*
Maya, or Mayadevi, name of Bud-
dha's mother, 93.
— not mentioned in the old Upani-
shads, 93.
— illusion, 157, 162, 185, 280, 281.
— sometimes called Samvriti, 367.
— doctrine, a disguised Buddhism,
457-
Meaning of a word, the, is that
which it chiefly aims at, 453.
Meditation with or without »n
obj. 3t, 341.
— Bhavana, 342.
Megasthenes, description by, 305
B. c., 26.
Memory, 419.
Menandros, Greek king, converses
with Buddhist, philosophers
63-
Meru, 274.
Metaphors, 195,
INDEX.
469
Metempsychosis, Sawsara, 104.
Milinda(Meiiander) and Nagasena,
dialogues, importance of, 63.
Mimamsa, quoted in Upanishads, 5.
— use of, in Upanishads, 84,
— method, 209.
Mimawsas, two, 308, 371.
Nyaya and Vaiseshika, 590.
Mimawsaka, Darsana, referred to
by Bhartrihiri, 90.
Mimamsakas require Sabda to be
eternal, 400.
— maintained the superhuman
origin of the Vedas, 207.
Mind, relation to language, 67.
— dispute with speech, 69.
— for Manas, 336, 383.
— modified by objects perceived,
345«
Miracles, 352.
Misdeos, name for Vasu Deva on
Ir do-Parthian coins, 63.
Mnemonic literature in India, 3,
92. 204.
of India, reduced to writing,
Tl8.
Moksha, highest aim of Kapila,
273-
Mokshadeva, or Master of the Tripi-
te,ka, Sanskrit name of Hiouen-
thsang, 29.
Mokshar>harma, 455.
Monotheism, Monism, tendencies
working together produce idea
of supreme personality, 41.
Morality depends on prescriptive
sacra or on Samaya, 390.
More, Henry, Holenmerian theory
of, 173.
MudT&a, stupid, 353.
Mudras, 349.
Mukhya-Prana, 163, 174.
vital spirit, as first Upadhi, 163.
— the vital spirit, 301.
Mulikarthas, 270.
Munrfasavakas, 240.
Murdhanya Nfidi, capital vein, 176.
NACHEIlN ANDER AND NEBEN-
EINANDER, 235.
Nagargruna, author of the Madhya-
mika-.Sutras, 366, 396.
— first century A. D., 366.
NaishMika, 22.
Naiyayika derives what is not yet
from what is, 303.
Naiyay.kas believe in God as a
Creator, 31.
— hold the Veda to be non-eternal,
332.
Namadha, name-giver, name given
to the one God, 47.
Nainadheya, technical name of
each sacrifice, 200.
Namarupa, 157.
— correspond to the Greek Logoi,
157.
Narayana is Brahman, 142.
Nasadiya hymn, 49.
Nastika, heretics, 98, 279,
— or .ZCarvaka system, 99.
Nate-Sutras, Silalin author of, 97!
Nebeneinander, truerJjey to growth
of philosophical ideas than the
Nacheinander, 74.
Nescience, cosmical, 154.
Newton's system, and Darwin's
theory of evolution, 326.
Niebuhr's derivation of Indian
philosophy from Greece, 387.
Nigantaas, 240, 241.
Nigrahasthana, unfitness for dis-
cussion, 389.
Niranumana, 249, 350, 268.
Niratisaya, ncn plus idtra, 322.
Niratman (selbqflos), 262.
Nirnaya, ascertainment, 388.
Nirodha, restraint, 336.
Nirvana, 296, 360, 373.
— also Nirvataft, 373.
— not a technical term in Panini's
time, 373.
— the blowing out of passions, 373.
— or Dufckhanta, 108.
Nirvikalpa, one kind of Pratyaksha,
144.
Nirvitarka, 346.
Northern Kurus, 374.
Notion, Anubhava, 383.
Nyasa, writing (Vyasa?), 118.
Nyaya-Sutras, 83.
— not found in Upanishads, 84.
— modern, confined to Pramana,
39i-
— later books of the, 391.
Nyayii-mala-vistarn , 20 1 .
INDEX.
Nyaya and Vni*eiiiika represent
Self endowed with qualities.
288.
a first step towards truth,
388, 308.
systems, 331, 362, 373.
relation between, 362.
books on, 369.
Nyaya -philosophy, history of, 363,
cS9.
— also applicable to the Purva-
Mimawta, 369.
— studied first century A. D., 396 n.
Nyaya on Sphofei, 413.
# — recognised the Veda, 417.
— calls Yoga to its aid, 427.
OM, 322.
— contraction of Avam, 323.
Organic body, the, 163.
PAD.X.NI, appliances. 252.
Padartha, not categories, 76, 375.
— the meaning of the word, 376.
Pad&rthas of Kanada, the five,
77-
•— (omne scfbile), 363.
Padma-Purawa, 456.
Padma Sarabhava, 439.
Padmasana. 348.
Pain, nature of, 376.
— meaning of, 297.
Paksha, or memixv of a Vyapti,
43o.
— or terminus minor, 430.
Pakshilasvamin, 365.
Palm-leaves pierced, 421.
Pan-- ni, lost Sutras known to, 97.
Panini's principle as to letters
forming a word, 404.
Paftftadasi, 215.
— author of the, quotes the Madh-
yamikas, 366.
Panfraratra, account of system in
Prasthana Bheda, 81.
PaJMpratras, 31.
PajWcasikha, philosopher referred to
in-Sawkhya-Sutras, 90, 295.
Pantaenus in India, one of the
teachers of Clement, 62.
fara, higher knowledge. 164.
Parables, Buddhist love of teaching
by, 306.
Parft gati, the highest poal,.24.
Parama-tavara, highest Lord, 334.
Pai*amartha, a law t jacher, A. i>.
557"589, 234.
Paramarthika, real, 367.
Paramatman is Isvara, but tsvara
is not Paramatman5 434.
Parampara, tradition, as handed
down orally, 04.
— mnemonic literature, ai8.
— of the Brahmaus, 306.
Parasara, 455.
Parasarya (Vyasa), author of Bhik-
shu-Sutras, 97, 117.
Parava^a, controversies, 325.
Paravairagya, higher impassive-
ness, 452.
Paribhagrakas, 241.
Parikshit, old King, is.
Pariwama, evolution, 185, 280.
Parinama-vada, theory of evolution,
81.
Parivragraka, or Bhikshu, 24.
— an itinerant friar, a*
— (mendicants), 31.
Pasupata, account of system in
Prasthana Bheda, 81.
Patoliputra, Buddhist Council at,
276 B.C., 25.
Pata%ali, author of Yoga-Sutras,
and Patangrali, author of the
Mahabhashya, 118.
— the grammarian, age of,wii9.
— by no means settled; 119.
— second century B.C.. 220.
— the philosopher may be the
same as the grammarian, 313.
— called Phanin, or Sesha, 313.
— date" of, only constructive, 314.
— called a portion of Sankarshana
or Ananta, 314,
— his theistic Sawkhya-philosophy,
318.
Patikka Samuppada, 378.
Perception, Pratyaksha, 379.
— contact of sense with its object,
393.
— contact of thp senses and mind,
392-
— contact of mind and the Self, 392,
— Sruti, 397.
Perceptions, always perceived as
perceptions of something, 161.
INDEX.
47'
Peoftfmasm 106.
Phala, rewards, 421, 495.
Phanibhartn, 314.
Phanin, name for Pataflgali, 313,
Phenomenal and fictitious, differ-
ence between, 185.
Philosophical ideas, common, 104.
— systems, parallel development
the time of Buddha, 240.
Philosophies and Sutraa, relative
age of, 219.
Philosophy, different ways of study-
ing, 182.
Pin run through sheets of a MS.
seems simultaneous, but is
successive, 393.
Pitriyana, path of the fathers, 176.
Pleiades, the return of calmer
weather, 37.
Plotiius, Holenmerian theory of,
173-
Postures, Yogarigas, 347.
— and tortures, 355.
Prabhakara, commentator on the
Mimamsa, 210.
— a Mimamsaka, 499.
Practical life (Vyavahara), 294.
— purposes (Vyavaharartham), 160.
Pradhana, Praknti, 269, 315, 341 n.
Pradynmna, 188.
Pragrapati, supreme god, 42*
attains more personal char-
acter, 45.
— called Visva, &c. , 260.
— tradition from, 307 .
Pra</na, or Giva, individual soul,
216, 260, 346.
Prakaranasama, argumen telling
on both sides, 388.
Prafci, previous, 197.
Prafcfcfcanna-Bauddhas, 306.
Prakriti, nature, potential matter,
157.
— not the author of creation, 158.
— wrongly translated by nature,
158
— nature, known as Maya (magic),
162.
— or Urstoff, 282.
— is not aj work when not perceived
by a Purusha, 282.
Prakrtti, different from nature,
<t>v(Tis, 290.
— Prak£sa, or light, 291.
— firs'- wakened to life by disturb-
ance of its three constituents,
291.
— In all her disguises, Purusha and
the dancer, 295.
Prakn'ti-purusha-viveka, 285.
Prakntilaya, 248.
— absorbed in Prakrtti, 343, 343.
Prakn'tis, eight, 290.
Prakriti's unselfishness, 299.
Pralaya, the idea of, recent, no.
Pralayas, absorptions of the whole
world, 109.
Pramana, only one admitted by the
Lokayatas, 99.
— instrument of measuring, 143.
Pramana, 374, 378.
Pramana-samufc&aya, the Tibetan
version, 396.
Pramanas, 143.
— three essential, 144.
— the three go back to one,
145-
— authoritative sources of know-
ledge. 202.
— of (ruimini, 202.
— three, 273, 274.
— eight, 395.
— in different Philosophical
Schools, 428.
Prameya, 374,:375> 382.
Prameyas, objects of knowledge,
392, 415, 421.
Pra?ia « breath, 47.
Pranas, vital spirits, 173.
Pranava, 322.
— the inner guide, 335.
Prawayamas, 344, 347.
Prasenagrit, 27.
Prasthana-bheda, treatise on philo-
sophical literature, 75.
Pratipathi-karmam, 201.
Pratisakhyas, 218.
Pratisan/rara is dissolution, 264.
Pratitya, dependent or conditioned,
367 n.
Pratityatva, 367^
Pratiyogitva, 437.
Pratyfihara, complete abstraction,
349-
472
INDEX.
Pratyaksha, sense perception, 144,
«73, 374-
— two kinds of, 144.
— perception and Anumara, in-
ference, ignored by Badara-
yana, 146.
— applied by Badarayana to Sruti
(revelation), 147.
— perception, 379, 392.
Pravn'tti, activity, 421.
Prayoga-vidhis, 200.
Prayograna, purpose, 385.
Presumption (Arthapatti), 203.
Pretyabhava, transmigration, 384,
421, 422.
Primeval waters, existing apart
from Pragrapati, 72.
Punarukti, useless repetition, 226.
Purana Kasyapa, teacher men-
tioned in Buddhist annals, 89.
Puratana, 307.
Purchas, 1613, mentions castes of
Banians, 9.
Purusha = man, name given to the
one god, 47.
— (soul) does not migrate, but the
Sukshma-sarira, subtle body,
105.
Purusha, 253, 277.
— name of supreme deity, 253,
34i.
— one or many ? 256.
— never the material cause of the
universe, 286.
— state of, when free, 296.
— rendered by Self, not by man,
3" n.
— the 25th Tattva, 342.
Purushas of the Sawkhya, many,
285, 371.
Purushottama, 329.
Purva, the prius, 381.'
Purva/caryas, 330.
Purva-Mimamsa, the first step, 141.
— 196, 200, 202, 213.
and Uttara-Mimamsa, 213.
charged with atheism, 321.
Purvapaksha, 204, 435.
Purvavat preceded by a prius, 379.
Pythagoras, identified with Bud-
dha-guru, 60.
— claimed a subtle covering for the
soul, 300.
QUALITIES, Guna, 441
Quality, intang ble in sound, 401
RA0AGJRIHA, Buddhist Council at,
477 B. c., 25.
Ragra-yoga, true Yoga, 345.
Raghuvawsa of Kalidasa, 207.
Rahu, head of, 337.
Raikva and Ganasruti, 14.
Rajendralal Mitra, 324, 325, 341, 358.
Ramanugra, lived twelfth century
A. D., 185.
— his view of universe, 280.
Ramanugra's system called Visishfa-
Advaita, 187.
Real and the phenomenal, differ-
ence between the, 161.
Reason, Hetu, 432.
Receptacle, Asraya, or subject, 425.
Religion and philosophy have
worked together harmoniously
in India alone, 409.
Religious persecution, Buddhists
and Brahman*, 29.
Religious and Popular Poetry of
Vcdic Age, not one hundredth
part of it remains, 41.
Remembering is not wiping out,
338.
Remembrance, Smarawa, 383.
— can make our mouths water,
416.
Jftddhis, or Aisvaryas, 350.
Rig-veda, a fragment only, does not
represent whole of Vedic my-
thology and religion, 42.
Jtttambhara, truth-bearing, 346.
Ritter, his contempt of the Nyaya,
76, 390.
Root, the, expresses Bhava, a state,
or Kriya, action, 405.
SABDA, the word, 274, 394, 399,
404, 448.
— or wora, a Pramawa, 145, 374,
382.
iSabdanusasanam, 31 7 n.
Sabhapati Svamy^, 352, 353.
Sacrifice was Karman, woMc, 198.
Sadhana-pada, 334.
Sadness cleaves to all finite life,
297.
Saiva and Pasupata systems, 457.
INDEX.
473
Sakalya, -3.
/Sakayanya, a Saka, 14.
Sa/c-fcid-aiinnda, being, perceiving,
blessed, Brahman called, 169.
Sakshatkara, or manifestation, 142.
Sakti, power, 157, 44*-
Samadhi, obstacles to, 323.
— meditation or absorption. 334,
34i, 35o. -
— or Samapatti, 346.
' Samadhi, Apragrnata, 347, 427.
Samanya. genus, 441, 447.
•Samanyato Drtshia, constantly seen
together, 380.
SainasM, 282.
Samavaya, intimate connection,
37^ 447-
Sambhava, probability, 395.
— equivalence, 429.
Sawgati, connection, 204, 205.
Saw0aya-Vaira#i-putra, teacher
mentioned in Buddhist annals,
89.
Sawgiti, a council (symphony), 4.
Samkara, literary works referred to
by, 114.
— his contempt of ritualism, 165,
— lived eighth century A. i>., 186.
— and. B4manu<?a, points of differ-
ence, 190.
— no better than Buddhism, 327.
— opposed to Sphofo, 410.
Samkarshana, 188.
Samkarsha'/ia-kantfa, consists of four
chapters, 78.
Samkharas, the, 378.
Samkhya, distinguished from other
Vedanta-philosophies, 80.
Samkhya-yoga, name occurs in
Upanishads, 84.
Samkhya-Darsana, referred to by
Bhartn'hari, 90.
r-amkhya, mentioned in Buddhist
texts, 93.
— and Yoga systems are Smnti,
147.
— dogma of effect, 158, 159*
— the duplistic, 160.
— philosophy, 215.
— ideas, influence of, 216.
— atheistic, yet orthodox, 231. 279,
— title of two systems, Samkhya
and Yoga, 262 n.
Sawkhya, true meaning of, 275.
— Aviveka, 281.
— immorality of the, 304
— parables, 305.
Samkhya-Yoga, 306.
Samkhya as Satkaryavada the op-
posite of the Buddhist view oi
"the world, 367.
— and Yoga treated by Madhusu-
dana as different from tiie two
Mimawsas, 450.
— knowledge, superior to other
systems, 454.
Samkhya-karikas, the, 222.
exist in a Chinese translation,
222.
Samkhya-Sutras, date of, 1380 A.D.,
84.
fourteenth century A. D., 220.
Samkhya- yogins, the, 335.
Samkhyas, followers of Kapila, 31.
— derive what is not, from what
is, 383.
SamkoMta, 188.
Samradhanam, accomplishment,
169.
Sawsara, can be stopped, 277.
Samsaya, 207.
— or doubt, 385.
Samskara, instincts, 320, 342.
Samskaras and Vasanas, 357.
— dispositions, 358, 442.
Samvrt'tika, 367.
Samyama constituted of Dharana,
Dhyana and Samadhi, 350.
— leads to Siddhis, perfection, 350.
Sananda, joyous, 342.
Sanandana Afcarya, philosopher re-
ferred to in Samkhya-Sutras,
90.
San&ara is evolution, 264.
Sanskrit proper names, 313.
Santa, pleasurable, 252.
tfanti Rakshita, 439.
Sanumana, 249, 250.
— with inference, 267.
Sarira, body, 173, 416.
Sarmanas, 26.
Sasmita, with false conceit, 342.
Sastra, the, 290.
Sat-karyavada, every effect pr»
exists, 159, 367.
— something real, 303.
474
INDEX.
Sattva, 356, 357. m
Saumanasya, serenity, 357.
Savage tribes, their philosophy, 5.
Savigra, with a seed, 343.
Savikalpa, one kind of Pratyaksha,
144.
Savifcara, deliberative, 24% 346.
— and Nirvifcara, 346.
Savifcarka, argumentative, 342, 346.
Savittv (Asura), the enlivener, one
of the agents of recurring
events 01 nature, spoken of in
Veda, 37.
Schopenhauer on the Persian trans-
lation of the Upanishads, 193.
Science of Language, and Science
of Thought, 402.
Second century B. c., 314.
— inference, Avita, not straight-
forward, 382.
Securus judicat orbis terrarum, Sar~
valaukikapramatva, 423.
Seed must perish before the flower
can appear, 422.
Self, the, 277.
— of God and man, the same,
194.
— characteristics of the, 383.
— does not begin with birth on
earth, 416.
Sensation without perception, 392,
393-
Senses, Indriyas* 415.
Soaha, name for Pata%ali, 314.
— or posterior, 379.
Shashti-tantca, 228.
the Sixty-doctrine, 271.
Siddhanta, 203.
— tenets, 385.
Siddhis, perfections, 350, 351, 357.
— miraculous powers, 352-354.
Sign, Liriga, or Vyapya, 380.
— bearer of a, Lingin, 380.
Slladitya Harshavardhana, com-
monly called Sri-Harsha of
Kanyakuhga, A. D. 610-650, 28.
Silalin, author of Nate-Sutras, 97.
Similarity, Samyam, 177.
Sita, daughter of Ganaka, zz.
Siva, found on earliest Mauryan
coins, 60.
Six systems of philosophy, 449.
Sixteen Topics, or Padarthas, 374.
Sixty-two systems of pMloropiijr,
Z7, 20.
Skambha, support, name given to
the one god, 47.
— the universal support, on©
meaning of Brahman, 70.
Skanda found on earliest Mauryan
coins. 60.
Sleep, state of dreamless, 174.
— comes when Manas enters Pura-
tatis 384-
Smriti includes philosophy, 3.
— reduced to writing, 93.
Smntis of the Sawkhya-yoga, ob-
ject;pns to convergence of the
Vedanta passages on Brahman,
79-
— philosophies of Gotama and
Kanada treated as, 80.
Souls, multiplicity of, 457. A
Sound, a quality, having Aka^a or
ether for its substance, 400.
— eternal character of, 401.
Space, 444.
Sphofo, * the eternal word « Brah-
man,' 65 n., 68, 402.
— Vedanta on, 410.
— Yoga and Samkhya on, 4za.
— Nyaya on, 413.
— Vaiseshika on, 414.
— sound, distinct from the letters,
403-
Spho&yana, 402.
Sraddha, faith, 266.
iSrutam and Smn'tam, a.
— or revelation, the only evidence
invoked by Badarayawa, 146.
— and Apta-va&ana, difference be-
tween, 234.
— inspiration, 347.
State religion in India, 25.
Statistics, to be used with caution,
45-
Stem and root, meaning of, 405.
Sthiti, 338.
Sthula- and Sukshma-sarira, 173,
271.
Subhashitas, 335.
Subject and object, as real or phe-
nomenal, 153.
identity of, 170.
Subjectivation, 283.
Substances, Dravya, 441.
INDEX.
475
Subtk body, according to the Ve-
danta, 300.
Sukha, bliss, 266.
Sukshma-sarira, migrates after
death, 174.
— — subtle body, 300.
the Liriga-sarlra of the Sam-
khya-philorophy, 301.
Summum bonum, the Ni/zsreyasa of
Gotama, 370.
of the six systems, 370-373.
Sunya, not altogether nothing,
367-
S&nyavada, nihilism, 22, 366.
— doctrine of emptiness, io
— emptiness doctrine, 184.
— nihilism, 386.
Suppiya, 16.
Supreme Being acting from com-
passion, 330.
Sutera, 269.
Sutre. style, 3, 203.
Sutra, a Buddhist, 440.
Sutra-vntti by Bodhayana, 187.
Sutras known to Buddhists, 15.
— + heir style, 93.
— now lost, known to Panini,
97-
— ascribed to Bn'haspati, 97.
— style of the, 218.
— of Kapila, called Manana-sastra,
institute of reasoned truth,
289.
— fables in the fourth chapter, 305,
306.
— the philosophical, later than
Buddha, 314.
— date of, 362.
Suttas (Sutras), name of part of
Buddhist Canon, 85.
Suvarna-Saptati-tfastra, the, 222.
Svabhasa, self-illuminated, 358.
livastikasa.ia, 349.
Svetaketu, 370.
Svetasvatara Upanishad, the three
Guwas found first in the, 216.
— Upanishad, 262.
Syadvada 19, 22.
Syllogism, 427.
Systems of philosophy, the Six, ex-
isting during period from Bud-
dha, fifth century, to Asoka,
third century, 90, 91.
TAB EK AM, that One, the neuter
Supreme Being, 48.
Taigrasa, luminous, 249, 250, 260.
Taittiriya, author of the, 208.
Takakusu, Dr., 223*
Tamasalina, 269.
TanmatrteS, five, 250, 292, 346.
— (this only), 291.
Tantra, cumulation of concurrent
rites, 202.
Tapas of the Hindus, 312.
Tarkm, old, 363.
— refutation or reasoning, 388.
Tat tram asi, Thou art that, 122.
Thou art it? 370.
Tattva-samasa, 274, 275, 306.
the, 242,
Tattvas, the twenty-five, 344, 274.
Technical terms in Upanishads, 5.
Tedarutikas, 240.
Tennyson, quoted, 156.
— Ancient Sage, 194.
Terebinthos, pupil of ScyfchLmos,
name famed among followers
of Hani, 64.
Terminus minor. Paksha, 430
— major, Vyapaka? 430.
— medius, Vyapya, 430.
Terms used in Hindu philosophy,
not the same as we use> 155.
Thlodicle, the Hindu, 171.
— an ancient, 212.
Third place, the, 179.
Third Valli of K&th& Upanishad,
136.
Three couples of philosophical sys-
tems, 308.
Time, 444.
— present, past, future, 393.
Titthiyas, or Tirthakas, 239.
Traigunya, 262.
Tranquillity (tfanti), 296.
Triad, Dharma, Art ha and Kama, 60.
— of elements, 100.
TripUaka, date of, 15.
Trithen, Dr., andPrasthana Bheda,
75-
Truth better than sacrifice, 361.
— Prama, 428.
Tryanuka, three double atoms, 446.
Tushtis and Siddhis, 270, 270 n.
Tvashfn, the maker, not real crea-
tor, of a)1 things, 43, 44.
476
INDEX.
Two Brahmans, tbo word and the
non-word, 407.
UDDALAKA, 20.
Uddyotakara, not Udyotakara, 364,
365.
Udulomas, 22.
Universalia in re&us, 398.
Upada, a, material cause, 158.
Upadhi, condition, 430.
Upadhis, liirltirig conditions of
name and form, 158.
— five, 163.
— conditions, impositions, 163.
— or conditions, 173.
— conditions, 380, 436.
Upalabdhi, perception, 173, 418.
Upamana, comparison, 374, 394,
448.
— belongs to the Nyaya school, 394.
Upanayana, 141.
Upanishad-period, 700 B. c., 4.
Upanishads, known to Buddhists,
24.
— existence of, recognised in Bud-
dhist Canon, 85.
— translation of, published 1879,
1884, 137.
— character of the, 139.
— contain the seeds of later philo-
sophy, 140.
— and Vedanta, something between
the, 143.
Upasakas, laymen, 25.
Upavarsha, teacher of Panini, 117.
— the Vedantist, 410.
Upayas, means of attaining Sama-
dhi, 344.
Uposhadha, 236.
Utpatti-vidhis,original injunctions,
200.
Uttarapaksha, 203, 435.
VADA, 389.
Vagapyayana, words, mean a genus,
' 406.
Vaikarik*, 250, 252, 267.
Vaikhanasa-Sutras, Joss of; referred
to by Bhaskara/carya, 86.
Vairagya-sataka of Gainafcarya, 339.
Vaisali,Buddhist council at, 377 B.C. ,
Vaiseshika, word not f-mnl in
Upanishads, 35.
— on Spho/a, 414.
— philosophy, 438.
Vaiseshikas, followers of Kanada,
3i-
— creation and dissolution accord-
ing to, no.
Vaishnavas (Ramamgra), theory of,
contrasted with that of Brah-
mavadins, 82.
Vafc, direction taken in Veda by
thoughts connected with
speech, 65.
Vafcaspaf ' -Misra, on Buddhi, 247.
— tenth century, 366.
Valkala, dress of bark, 27.
Vanaprasthas, 10, 27, 86.
Vanigr = Banian, 9.
Varaha-Mihira mentionsKapila and
Kanabhugr, 241.
Varna, colour and caste, 9.
Vasamas, impressions, 175, 320, 358.
Vasso, from Varshas, 237.
Vasubandha, knew the six Tirthya
philosophies, 363.
Vasunetra of the Vaiseshika school,
440,
Vasus, seven, can be distinguished,
38.
Vattagamani, 80 B. c., Tripi&ka
written, 4.
Vayus, winds, 267.
Veda, infallibility of the, in.
— authority of, 149, 232.
— meaning of, 149.
— acquisition of the mere sound,
meritorious, 204.
— superhuman origin of the, 206.
— authority assigned by Kapila to
the, 232.
— cannot prove the existence of a
Supreme Being, 332.
— the word of Brahman, 395.
Vedadhyayana, learning the Veda
by heart, 141.
Vedanta, word does not occur in
old Upanisl; .ds, 84.
— or Uttara-Mimamsa, 113.
— the first growth of philosophical
thought, 115.
— followers of the, called Aupani-
shadas, 116.
INDEX.
477
Vedanta fundamental doctrines of
the, 121.
— resume of the, 122.
— philosophies, two, 192.
— monism of, 216. .
— first occurs in the Svetasvatara,
220.
— and Samkhya, early relation be-
tween, 258.
— Avidya, Aviveka, 280.
— the, monistic, 281.
— on Sphote, 410.
Vedanta-Sara, 215.
Vedanta- Sutras and Bfidarayana,
earlier than the Bhag~vad-gita,
113-
— and Bhagavad-gita, relative age
of, 118.
— methodical, 141.
Vedantins, followers of Upanishads,
31-
Ved ntist, a, does not really join
Brahman, 309.
Vedantists derive the unreal from
the real, 303.
Vedas, authority of the, 149.
— sound of, eternal, 208.
— words of the, supernatural, 208.
Vedic gods, three classes — (i) of
the sky ; (2) of the mid-air ;
(3) of the earth, 37.
Vedic hymns, date for, 2000 B.C. or
5000 B.C., little gained by this,
34«
Vedic VlUfc, a feminine, 56.
— coincidence with Sophia of O.T.,
57-
VedosdhyetavyaA, 205.
Verbal symbols, 165.
Vibhuti-pada, 334.
Vibhutis, powers, 349.
Videhas, bodyless, 342, 343.
Vidhatri, arranger, name given to
the one god, 47.
Vidvan-moda-tararigim, 212.
Vidyamatra, knowledge only, 160.
— doctrine, 427.
Vigrflana Bhikshu, 285, 288, 451.
— supposed to have composed the
Sutras, 221.
Vikaras, sixteen, 253, 283.
Vikasa, r higher enlightenment,
no,
Viniyoga-vidni, 200.
Virasana, 349.
Virtue, a preliminary of Moksha,
166.
Viruddha, arguments proving the
reverse, 389.
Visakha- found on earliest Mauryan
coin, 60.
Visesha, gross elements, 341 n., 447.
Vishamatvam, unevenness, m.
Vishaya, 204.
Vishnu, 313.
— disguised as Buddha, 457.
Vishwi-Purana, 456.
Visishte-Advaita, Ramanugra's sys-
tem, 187.
Visva, or Vaisvanara, 260.
Visvakamma, later development of
Visvakarman, 45.
Visvakarman, described, vague and
uncertain character, 45.
— maker of all things, adjective
showing germs that were to
grow into supreme deity, used
as substantive, 43.
Visve, or All-gods, represent first
attempt at comprehending the
various gods as forming a class,
39-
Vitanda, cavilling, 389.
Vivarta, turning away, 185.
Vivarta-vada, theory of illusion,
81.
Vivas vat, 307.
Vivekananda, 213.
Vividisha, desire of knowledge, 266.
Viyoga or Viveka, 310.
Vriha or Vn'dh-a, possibly Sanskrit
words, 55.
Vnshadeva received Sawkara ? 223.
— king of Nepal, A. D. 630, 223.
Vyadi, words mean individual
things, 406.
Vyakta, 188.
Vyapaka, fire, 145.
— what pervades, 429.
— or Sfidhya, terminus major, 430.
Vyapta, pervaded, 429.
Vyapti, universal rule, pervasion,
429, 434-
— a, may be true in ninety-nine
oa8es,yet not in the hundredth,
434-
INDEX.
vyapti, threefold, 436.
Vyapya, what must be pervaded,
429.
— terminus medius, 430.
Vyasa, identified with Badarayana,
"3-
— lived at the end of the Bvapara
age, 113.
— neyer named by Samkara as the
autfior of the Sutras, 112.
— the father of Suka, 114.
— called Parasarya, 117.
— and Harihara, 256.
— commentary on Yoga-Sutras, 313.
Vyashtf, 283.
Vyavaharartham, practical pur-
poses, 1 60.
Vyavaharika, phenomenal, 367.
WEBER, A., Professor, 56, 307 n.
Whole, is there a ? 393.
Women, present at philosophical
discussions, 10.
Wood-architecture, previous to
stonework, 61.
Word, the, as a creative power, 66.
— or Sabda, 382, 399.
Words, meaning of, conventional i
394-
— express the summum genus, 405.
— not names of individuals, but of
classes, 408.
World, phenomenal reality of the,
154-
— created by the Word, 397.
Worlds, the, created from the Word,
150-
Worship (UpasaniO, 164.
Writing, allusions to, 92.
Writing, when first attempt sd, in
India, 218.
Written letters called Unreal, 92.
YlfftfAVALKYA, xx, la, 340.
— and kanaka, 13.
Ya&kafc, anybody, 254, 254 n.
Yama and Yami, usually identified
with Adam and Eve, children
of Tvashfri, but childless them-
selves, 44.
Yoga, quoted in Upanishads, 5, 84.
— and Samkhya, the true philoso-
phies, 80.
— not ration, 170.
— in the Taittiriya and Katoa
Upanishads, 220.
— and Samkhya, 307.
— meanings of the word, 308.
— is Samatva, equability, 308.
— not union, but disunion, 30^.
— means really Viyoga, 310. • •
— steadying of the mind, 336.
— as a Taraka, or ferry across the
world, 356.
— is it Nihilism ? 359.
— and Samkhya on Sphote, 412.
Yoga-Sutras, 334.
Yogafcaras, 22, 366.
Yogangas, helps to Yoga, 347, 348.
— eight accessories of Yoga, 350.
Yoganusasanam, 317 n.
Yoga-sara-sawgraha, abstract of the
Yoga, 318.
Yogins in Mai tray. Up. VI, 220.
— perceptions of the, 327.
— nine classes of, 343.
ZARADES (Zoroaster), name found
among followers of Mani, 64.
THE END,
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